a-3-7
12-18-2005, 12:01
U.S News & World Report
December 26, 2005
The Mutating Threat
Why U.S. officials worry about a group you've never heard of
By Kevin Whitelaw
These days, there are few clear victories in the battle against terrorism. Instead, the effort is increasingly coming down to a series of arrests like the ones in Spain in early December. Police captured seven Algerians accused of stealing luxury goods from vacation homes along Spain's southern coast. Authorities say that the gang had infiltrated the high-end real-estate market to pick up tips on which homes to target. The real significance, however, is that the suspects were allegedly funneling the proceeds to other Algerian militants for attacks in Afghanistan and perhaps in Europe. But investigators do not know who would have carried out the attacks.
The bust of this alleged logistics cell follows a spate of recent arrests of Algerian militants in Spain, Italy, France, and even Canada. Authorities fear that they have unearthed only the tip of a larger network of North African militants in Europe, many of them tied to the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Call and Combat (known by its initials in French as GSPC). U.S. officials fear that these groups are becoming the new frontline troops in the al Qaeda movement.
For those in the U.S. government who track terrorism, it is getting harder and harder to figure out who, exactly, the enemy is. Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, suggested last week that Osama bin Laden no longer has operational control of al Qaeda. In fact, it's not clear that anybody does at this point. "Al Qaeda's central leadership has not directly orchestrated or even had foreknowledge of most of the antiwestern attacks since 9/11," a U.S. counterterrorism official tells U.S. News. The most prominent successor is Abu Musab Zarqawi and his network of foreign suicide bombers in Iraq, but attacks like the Madrid train bombings in March 2004 are of growing concern. Those blasts, which killed 191 people, have been tied to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a shadowy, loose-knit outfit even more mysterious than the GSPC.
Intelligence officials fear that these North African groups could be the future, more anonymous face of the terrorist threat. The GSPC, which grew out of Algeria's violent civil war in the 1990s, was once seen mostly as a local threat. But the group, which had developed an extensive European exile support network, now has much broader ambitions. "The concern is that they could link up with other extremists to launch attacks beyond Algeria, particularly on soft targets frequented by westerners," says one U.S. counterterrorism official.
U.S. News has learned that some U.S. officials now believe that the GSPC, after years of contacts with al Qaeda leaders, has formally allied itself with bin Laden. That conclusion is still under debate in the intelligence community, but the GSPC's public statements praise al Qaeda increasingly often. In addition, European officials believe that the GSPC has approached al Qaeda leaders with a proposal that it be assigned a mission in North Africa that mirrors Zarqawi's role in Iraq.
Moving parts. Not everyone is convinced the GSPC is that dangerous. A successful offensive by Algerian authorities has killed many militants and left GSPC's leadership in turmoil. Experts also suggest the group's interest is predominantly criminal--mostly smuggling cigarettes and drugs. It does not have a track record of using tactics like car bombs and has not been credited for many successful attacks.
But GSPC operatives have been implicated in several serious plots, including Ahmed Ressam's alleged attempt to blow up the Los Angeles airport in 1999 and one against the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, in 2000. "The power of the GSPC is not what's in Algeria," says Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant who has tracked the group. "It's what's in Europe." European estimates suggest the group retains 800 to 900 operatives.
In Europe, officials are worried about the increasing contacts between militants from different groups, including the GSPC and the Moroccan network behind the Madrid bombings. In fact, formal groupings probably have less relevance. "The way to look at it is a collection of autonomous moving parts that sometimes mesh with each other and sometimes are completely independent," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand think tank. "The terrorist groups may be the equivalent of holding companies, where the links are tenuous and changing." The GSPC has declared that its top external target is France, Algeria's former colonial ruler and home to millions of Muslims of North African descent. In September, French police arrested a group of GSPC-linked Algerians who allegedly were exploring attacks against the Paris subway.
U.S. military and intelligence officials are also monitoring the growing influence of a particularly violent GSPC cell in the Sahara desert south of Algeria. GSPC operatives have been retreating into the lawless rural areas of Algeria's neighbors like Mali and Mauritania. "They have set up shop there in what we're afraid will become the new Afghanistan," says a senior U.S. military specialist on the region. "We don't want them to become the training center of excellence for all the jihadists in the world."
Recruitment. Even more alarming, intelligence officials picked up signals this past summer that the GSPC was reaching out to other militants in a broad recruiting effort. There could be many opportunities for new recruits to gain real-world experience. In one of its boldest efforts, the GSPC kidnapped 32 European tourists in the Algerian desert in 2003. More recently, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a remote Mauritanian Army post that killed 15 soldiers. "The quality of training videos on how to build bombs is just staggering," says the military official. "You combine that with a free-fire zone in the wild west of Mali, and you have a problem that is just overwhelming." This concern prompted the U.S. government to launch a trans-Sahara initiative that includes development aid as well as training for local security forces. This year the budget is only $20 million, but it could reach $100 million eventually.
Some experts have accused the U.S. military of exaggerating the threat. The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, put out a report last spring concluding that the area is "not a hotbed of terrorist activity" but that U.S. military aid programs risk inflaming anti-American sentiment.
U.S. officials stand by their assessment, saying that they have also picked up signs that the GSPC and other North Africans are working with Zarqawi to direct foreign fighters to Iraq. U.S. intelligence has picked up actual routes and names of North Africans attempting to infiltrate. And there is a new theory creating even more concern. Some U.S. officials believe that there might be times when Zarqawi is receiving more foreign fighters than his group can safely absorb and that some could get diverted to North Africa to reinforce the GSPC.
December 26, 2005
The Mutating Threat
Why U.S. officials worry about a group you've never heard of
By Kevin Whitelaw
These days, there are few clear victories in the battle against terrorism. Instead, the effort is increasingly coming down to a series of arrests like the ones in Spain in early December. Police captured seven Algerians accused of stealing luxury goods from vacation homes along Spain's southern coast. Authorities say that the gang had infiltrated the high-end real-estate market to pick up tips on which homes to target. The real significance, however, is that the suspects were allegedly funneling the proceeds to other Algerian militants for attacks in Afghanistan and perhaps in Europe. But investigators do not know who would have carried out the attacks.
The bust of this alleged logistics cell follows a spate of recent arrests of Algerian militants in Spain, Italy, France, and even Canada. Authorities fear that they have unearthed only the tip of a larger network of North African militants in Europe, many of them tied to the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Call and Combat (known by its initials in French as GSPC). U.S. officials fear that these groups are becoming the new frontline troops in the al Qaeda movement.
For those in the U.S. government who track terrorism, it is getting harder and harder to figure out who, exactly, the enemy is. Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, suggested last week that Osama bin Laden no longer has operational control of al Qaeda. In fact, it's not clear that anybody does at this point. "Al Qaeda's central leadership has not directly orchestrated or even had foreknowledge of most of the antiwestern attacks since 9/11," a U.S. counterterrorism official tells U.S. News. The most prominent successor is Abu Musab Zarqawi and his network of foreign suicide bombers in Iraq, but attacks like the Madrid train bombings in March 2004 are of growing concern. Those blasts, which killed 191 people, have been tied to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a shadowy, loose-knit outfit even more mysterious than the GSPC.
Intelligence officials fear that these North African groups could be the future, more anonymous face of the terrorist threat. The GSPC, which grew out of Algeria's violent civil war in the 1990s, was once seen mostly as a local threat. But the group, which had developed an extensive European exile support network, now has much broader ambitions. "The concern is that they could link up with other extremists to launch attacks beyond Algeria, particularly on soft targets frequented by westerners," says one U.S. counterterrorism official.
U.S. News has learned that some U.S. officials now believe that the GSPC, after years of contacts with al Qaeda leaders, has formally allied itself with bin Laden. That conclusion is still under debate in the intelligence community, but the GSPC's public statements praise al Qaeda increasingly often. In addition, European officials believe that the GSPC has approached al Qaeda leaders with a proposal that it be assigned a mission in North Africa that mirrors Zarqawi's role in Iraq.
Moving parts. Not everyone is convinced the GSPC is that dangerous. A successful offensive by Algerian authorities has killed many militants and left GSPC's leadership in turmoil. Experts also suggest the group's interest is predominantly criminal--mostly smuggling cigarettes and drugs. It does not have a track record of using tactics like car bombs and has not been credited for many successful attacks.
But GSPC operatives have been implicated in several serious plots, including Ahmed Ressam's alleged attempt to blow up the Los Angeles airport in 1999 and one against the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, in 2000. "The power of the GSPC is not what's in Algeria," says Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant who has tracked the group. "It's what's in Europe." European estimates suggest the group retains 800 to 900 operatives.
In Europe, officials are worried about the increasing contacts between militants from different groups, including the GSPC and the Moroccan network behind the Madrid bombings. In fact, formal groupings probably have less relevance. "The way to look at it is a collection of autonomous moving parts that sometimes mesh with each other and sometimes are completely independent," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand think tank. "The terrorist groups may be the equivalent of holding companies, where the links are tenuous and changing." The GSPC has declared that its top external target is France, Algeria's former colonial ruler and home to millions of Muslims of North African descent. In September, French police arrested a group of GSPC-linked Algerians who allegedly were exploring attacks against the Paris subway.
U.S. military and intelligence officials are also monitoring the growing influence of a particularly violent GSPC cell in the Sahara desert south of Algeria. GSPC operatives have been retreating into the lawless rural areas of Algeria's neighbors like Mali and Mauritania. "They have set up shop there in what we're afraid will become the new Afghanistan," says a senior U.S. military specialist on the region. "We don't want them to become the training center of excellence for all the jihadists in the world."
Recruitment. Even more alarming, intelligence officials picked up signals this past summer that the GSPC was reaching out to other militants in a broad recruiting effort. There could be many opportunities for new recruits to gain real-world experience. In one of its boldest efforts, the GSPC kidnapped 32 European tourists in the Algerian desert in 2003. More recently, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a remote Mauritanian Army post that killed 15 soldiers. "The quality of training videos on how to build bombs is just staggering," says the military official. "You combine that with a free-fire zone in the wild west of Mali, and you have a problem that is just overwhelming." This concern prompted the U.S. government to launch a trans-Sahara initiative that includes development aid as well as training for local security forces. This year the budget is only $20 million, but it could reach $100 million eventually.
Some experts have accused the U.S. military of exaggerating the threat. The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, put out a report last spring concluding that the area is "not a hotbed of terrorist activity" but that U.S. military aid programs risk inflaming anti-American sentiment.
U.S. officials stand by their assessment, saying that they have also picked up signs that the GSPC and other North Africans are working with Zarqawi to direct foreign fighters to Iraq. U.S. intelligence has picked up actual routes and names of North Africans attempting to infiltrate. And there is a new theory creating even more concern. Some U.S. officials believe that there might be times when Zarqawi is receiving more foreign fighters than his group can safely absorb and that some could get diverted to North Africa to reinforce the GSPC.