In Algeria, al-Qaida extends franchise

updated 12:21 p.m. ET June 6, 2009

DRAA BEN KHEDDA, Algeria - Deep in the Sahara Desert, along the remote southern borders of Algeria, lies an immense no man's land where militants roam.

It is here that terrorists linked with al-Qaida traffic everything from weapons and drugs to illegal migrants. They have planted at least a half-dozen cells in Europe, according to French, Italian and Belgian intelligence. Last week, they announced on the Internet that they had killed a British hostage in Mali, and are still holding a Swiss hostage.

The al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaida is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaida's brand name and some corporate know-how.

"The relationship with the al-Qaida mother company works like in a multinational," says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks. "There's a strong ideological link, but the local subsidiary operates on its own."

Another Western intelligence official compares AQIM to a local fast food franchise, "only for terrorism."

A picture of AQIM and its ties with al-Qaida emerges from accounts by its victims, interviews with some of the dozens of intelligence officials following its activities and data pieced together by Western diplomats in Algeria.

It shows that the battle against radical Islam in Algeria has become crucial — and not only for North Africa. Intelligence officials throughout Europe are convinced that AQIM wants to expand in their region.

A senior counterterrorism official in France, who was not authorized to talk on the record, told The Associated Press that his services work "daily, constantly" with Algerian security to contain this threat. He says at least six AQIM-related cells, dormant or getting ready for action, have been dismantled across Europe in recent years.

Last month, the Spanish judiciary announced it had caught 12 Algerians from a suspected support cell. And last week, Italian authorities issued arrest warrants for two Tunisians, two Moroccans and an Algerian suspected of plotting attacks on a church and a subway line.

"For now, we've been good," the French official says. "But we've basically been lucky."

Superstar of jihad
Four years ago, the Algerian terrorists — then known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat — were running out of steam.

Born in an insurgency in 1992, the group took part in a near-civil war the next decade that killed about 200,000 people. But its fighters had lost popular support after killing Muslim civilians. Many leaders had turned themselves in during government amnesties, and the group was weak from internal feuds.

So its new emir or leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel, reached out to the superstar of international jihad: Al-Qaida.

His emissaries met with Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, or close associates of his in countries like Sudan, Lebanon or Yemen, the Western intelligence officials told the AP.

Al-Qaida said it couldn't give its brand away to an unreliable group: Even by jihad standards, Algerian militants had a reputation for excess violence. But after a year of talks and tests, al-Zawahri issued a statement recognizing the "blessed union" on Sept. 11, 2006.

AQIM tried to focus more on Western targets in Algeria or tourists and Jews in Morocco. It also imported al-Qaida techniques, such as fine-tuned remote-controlled roadside bombs and suicide bombers.

In an apparent reference to al-Qaida's attacks on the U.S. on 9/11, AQIM carried out its first suicide bombings on April 11, 2007. On Dec. 11 that year, it killed 37 people — including 17 United Nations staffers — in an attack that devastated the U.N.'s Algerian headquarters.

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