Author Topic: Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France  (Read 2106 times)

Offline xrtoronto

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4219
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« on: September 14, 2006, 08:15:39 PM »
By JOHN LEICESTER and OMAR SINAN, Associated Press Writers
2 hours, 29 minutes ago

PARIS - Al-Qaida has for the first time announced a union with an Algerian insurgent group that has designated France as an enemy, saying they will act together against French and American interests. ADVERTISEMENT



Current and former French officials specializing in terrorism said Thursday that an al-Qaida alliance with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, was cause for concern.

"We take these threats very seriously," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said, adding in an interview on France-2 television that the threat to France was "high" and "permanent," and that "absolute vigilance" was required.

Al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, announced the "blessed union" in a video posted this week on the Internet to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

France's leader have repeatedly warned that the decision not to join the U.S.-led war in
Iraq would not shield the country from Islamic terrorism. French participation in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon could give extremists another reason to strike.

The national police had no immediate comment on the announced alliance, but officials have long regarded the GSPC as one of the main terror threats facing France.

French experts agreed, but also noted the group has been severely weakened by internal divisions, security crackdowns and defections in Algeria, a former French territory still working to put down an Islamic insurgency that reached its most murderous heights in the 1990s.

"The GSPC is losing speed and has suffered very significant losses in recent months," said Louis Caprioli, former assistant director of France's DST counterterrorism and counterintelligence agency.

Some GSPC fighters took advantage of a recent Algerian amnesty for Islamic insurgents and others have been killed, said Caprioli, who works for Geos, a risk management firm.

Of the 800 combatants that GSPC was estimated to have had last year, probably no more than 500 remain, and the group has had no operational cells in France since the late 1990s, he said.

But Caprioli and others also said an alliance of GSPC and al-Qaida could increase the terror risk for France — not least because al-Zawahri's designation of the country as a worthy target could inspire extremists to take action.

In his video, Al-Zawahri hailed "the joining up" of the GSPC with al-Qaida as "good news."

"All the praise is due to Allah for the blessed union which we ask Allah to be as a bone in the throats of the Americans and French Crusaders and their allies, and inspire distress, concern and dejection in the hearts of the traitorous, apostate sons of France," he said.

"We ask him (Allah) to guide our brothers in the Salafist Group for Call and Combat to crush the pillars of the Crusader alliance, especially their elderly immoral leader, America."

Although GSPC leaders had previously sworn allegiance to al-Qaida, al-Zawahri's video marked the first al-Qaida recognition of a union between the two, French terror experts said.

"From now on, the links are official, legitimate, and they are taking part in the same combat," said Anne Giudicelli, a former French diplomat specializing in the Middle East who runs the Paris-based consultancy Terrorisc.

Sarkozy said it was "not by chance" that al-Qaida used the emblematic Sept. 11 date to announce the insurgency movement's alliance with al-Qaida.

"But there is nothing new," he added, noting that the GSPC had done the same three years ago.

The GSPC, in its own statement on a Web site used by militants, confirmed the alliance and urged other militant groups to also join al-Qaida.

Giudicelli said the alliance could act as a green light for al-Qaida and GSPC militants to operate together and thus raises the risk for France.

"The Americans have become harder to target domestically, so they are trying to widen the field of action and strike their allies," she said.

___

Omar Sinan is based in Cairo, Egypt. Associated Press writer Verena von Derschau in Paris also contributed to this report.

source

This can't be good. Why against France? But then, we arrested 17 here in TO just recently wanting to bomb this city...

Offline Delirium

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 7276
Re: Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2006, 09:14:43 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by xrtoronto
"The Americans have become harder to target domestically, so they are trying to widen the field of action and strike their allies," she said.
 


So they hit our Allies, the French?

Did I miss something? :huh
Delirium
80th "Headhunters"
Retired AH Trainer (but still teach the P38 selectively)

I found an air leak in my inflatable sheep and plugged the hole! Honest!

Offline FiLtH

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6448
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2006, 09:52:11 PM »
Ya can you call them allies? Or acquaintences? Ive lost track.

~AoM~

Offline Seagoon

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2396
      • http://www.providencepca.com
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2006, 10:55:40 PM »
I'm almost afraid to comment on Islam related threads these days, but since self-preservation and common sense aren't my strong suits...

Actually, the GSPC and Al-Qaeda alliance isn't surprising at all given that they both spring from the Muslim Brotherhood and have the same objectives. In fact, in a very real sense Al-Qaeda was the source of the GSPC:

Quote

"Fighting Salafism emerged in Europe in the mid-1990s through the armed Algerian groups. The fact that most of these were infiltrated by al-Qa’ida illustrates the gradual convergence between global jihadism and this form of Salafism. The nearest precursor is Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group (GIA), whose European wing—under Khaled Kelkal—carried out several attacks in France in 1995 and 1996. The editor-in-chief of its mouthpiece in Europe, the weekly publication al-Ansar, was Abu Qutada, later to become one of the leading ideologists of fighting Salafism. When the group’s infrastructure came under pressure in France, its cells were divided up among Belgium, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain.

The demise of GIA leader Jamal Zitouni in 1996 caused a split within the group, apparently at the behest of Usama bin Ladin, who was opposed to the campaign of brutal attacks against civilians in Algeria carried out by the GIA under Zitouni. The al-Qa’ida leader gave his support to the creation of the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), establishing direct ties with its head Hasan Hattab, who until then was the leader of the GIA network in Europe. In August 1998, Hattab’s followers joined the GSPC, making it not only the main Algerian terrorist group, but also the main group in Europe with al-Qa’ida links, having inherited the GIA networks there."

MIDDLE EAST SALAFISM'S INFLUENCE AND THE RADICALIZATION OF MUSLIM COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE - Juan José Escobar Stemmann, Deputy Head of Mission in the Spanish Embassy in Jordan.


For more on origins, operations, objectives of GSPC see:
http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2006/issue3/jv10no3a1.html
and
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2011
SEAGOON aka Pastor Andy Webb
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams

storch

  • Guest
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2006, 11:01:55 PM »
the next big news flash will be that france has joined alqaida and the algerians against france and the United States.  those zany moslems, what will they think of next?

Offline Masherbrum

  • Radioactive Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 22416
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2006, 11:14:58 PM »
When did "the French" become Allied with the US in the "War on Terror"?   After the gravytrain of "Oil for Food Kickbacks" ceased?
FSO Squad 412th FNVG
http://worldfamousfridaynighters.com/
Co-Founder of DFC

Offline majic

  • Silver Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1538
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2006, 12:17:32 AM »
It's nice to see they're getting along.

:huh

Offline Mightytboy

  • Parolee
  • Copper Member
  • **
  • Posts: 176
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2006, 09:59:47 AM »
Has France surrendered yet?




Sorry! No one posted it yet and we can't have a thread about France without saying it.

Offline Momus--

  • Nickel Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 651
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2006, 04:18:38 PM »
Seagoon is right, the GSPC's forerunner the GIA shares the same roots as Bin Laden's mob although they did previously reject ties with Bin Laden during the '90s to the extent of actually killing Bin Laden's representative when he showed his face in Algeria according to some sources.

That said, I can't see France being very shocked by this supposed development, seeing as they are already in the firing line for being in Afghanistan, and given that they were fighting the GIA twenty years ago back when Reagan and Bush I were still making common cause with Osama and his buddies. They already assist the algerian government in dealing with the islamists and have done for a long time now.

Utter non-story, just Al-Zawahiri looking for publicity.

Offline Elfie

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6143
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2006, 04:22:04 PM »
France is our Ally in the war on terror? Who knew........
Corkyjr on country jumping:
In the end you should be thankful for those players like us who switch to try and help keep things even because our willingness to do so, helps a more selfish, I want it my way player, get to fly his latewar uber ride.

Offline Dago

  • Parolee
  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 5324
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2006, 07:16:57 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Mightytboy
Has France surrendered yet?




Sorry! No one posted it yet and we can't have a thread about France without saying it.


I imagine they are desperatly looking for someone to surrender to.
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

Offline straffo

  • Persona Non Grata
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 10029
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #11 on: September 16, 2006, 03:47:22 AM »
ALLEZ VOUS FAIRE ENCULER

Offline FUNKED1

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6866
      • http://soldatensender.blogspot.com/
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #12 on: September 16, 2006, 04:29:50 AM »
Allow me to translate.  It means "Go f*** yourself.  In the a***." :D

Offline stegor

  • Nickel Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 482
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #13 on: September 16, 2006, 04:44:51 AM »
ehehe.....simple and plain :aok
Nibbio
4° Stormo C.T. "F. Baracca"


Offline Ouaibe

  • Copper Member
  • **
  • Posts: 192
Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France
« Reply #14 on: September 16, 2006, 06:21:41 AM »
Tsss Tsss Straffo, répondre à des ignorants ne changera pas la donne.

There are other ways to fight effectively the terrorists. France prove it before the 11th september 2002 and tried to warn USA of the threat before, and help USA after.
But for some here, all that count is GI Joe. on the field (even the wrong one!).

Others know better.

PS : 1/3 of american citizens don't remember the year of the WTC attack... Wonders wonders.