October Algeria report (Part IV)

Levels of jihadist activity and related security incidents were somewhat below average in September: only 13 jihadist operations were recorded (down from 15 the previous month and 19 the month before that), out of a total incident count of 23. AQMI’s traditional heartland Kabylia has been particularly quiet: only one terrorism-related incident was reported in the Kabyle wilayas for the whole month between Aug. 13 and Sept. 13[6], and although AQMI activity resumed in Kabylia after that date it remained at a surprisingly low level, with only 8 operations reported for September and the first week of October. Algerian newspapers reported that security forces in the town of Tizi Ouzou, the largest city in Kabylia, were put on “maximum alert” on October 5 after intelligence services received “credible information” of a suicide car bomb “ready to go” in the town, but there does not appear to have been any follow-through. The question of whether AQMI’s capability in its historic heartland has been lastingly degraded, raised in our last report, remains open.

In ALGIERS, meanwhile, the situation was entirely quiet apart from one incident on Sept. 13 when the authorities destroyed a “suspect package” in the Baïnem forest on the western edges of the capital. A local resident spotted the object and alerted the authorities who cordoned off the area and brought in the bomb squad. The object was destroyed in a controlled explosion and its fragments taken to the lab for inspection. It is not clear, though, whether it was a actually bomb. 

While the oil- and gas-producing regions of the SOUTH were on the whole quiet, activity and clashes with smugglers on the borders resumed after a four-month hiatus (see previous report). Only two armed clashes on the southern borders were reported from May 23 to September 12, and seven since, including two firefights with smugglers/jihadists around the town of Bordj Baji Mokhtar on the border with Mali, one incident with “jihadists coming in from Libya” near the town of Deb Deb in Illizi, a clash with smugglers south of Djanet on the border with Libya, and a clash “near the border with Niger”. On Oct. 6 special forces units “on the border with Mali” captured “four Mujao jihadists” — three originally from Niger and one Algerian — “using advanced sensing devices brought in from Russia”. The jihadists were trying to sneak their way in among a group of refugees fleeing instability in northern Mali, but they were discovered. They were found to be carrying individual weapons and “an explosive belt”. The next day (Oct. 7) an army force clashed with a group of jihadists of the Belmokhtar group that were trying to cross into Algerian near Tinzaouatin on the Malian border. The army “destroyed an offroader and killed four jihadist”. Further, L’Expression reported on October 9 that the recent dismantling of a “terror support” network in the east of the country has allowed the authorities to seize “SAM-7 missiles[7] smuggled in from Libya”. The newspaper gave no further details, but this “revelation” came a couple of weeks after the commander of a powerful Libyan militia told the Washington Post (Sept. 24) that looters had stolen “a large number” of shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles (manpads) from the militia’s base in Benghazi when protesters who called for dismantling the country’s militias overran the compound. It is worth recalling here that the Algerian press has frequently talked of manpads seized by the authorities on the borders or smuggled into the country, but on the ground there is no firm evidence that Aqmi in Algeria itself has such weapons.

Across the border in northern Mali, Aqmi’s “emir of the Sahara region”, Nabil Makhloufi (aka, Abou Alqama, an Algerian national) was killed “in a car accident” north of Gao on September 8, according to reports on Mauritanian news sites, later confirmed by Aqmi itself. On October 4 ANI, a Mauritanian news agency, said Jemal Oukacha, alias Yahya Abou El Hammam, a close aid to Aqmi Emir Abdelmalik Droukdel, was named the group’s emir for the Sahara region. Abou El Hammam, an Algerian national, is one of the most prominent Al-Qaeda leaders in northern Mali, and was earlier this year appointed “governor of Timbuktu” by the AQMI/MUJAO/Ansar Dine alliance which currently controls northern Mali.

The news of Abou Alqama’s death set the Algerian press to speculating about clashes between the various factions in northern Mali. On Sept. 28 El-Khabar claimed that members of Belmokhtar’s group clashed with Mujao fighters, leaving eight of Belmokhtar’s men dead and Belmokhtar himself “seriously wounded”, supposedly because of disagreements between Belmokhtar and Mujao over how to handle the Algerian diplomats held hostage by the latter. Belmokhtar’s followers denied the news in a call to a Mauritanian news agency on Sept. 30, but the Algerian newspaper insisted its original story is true. However, reports that Belmokhtar has been killed or wounded have been legion over the years, and must always be treated with considerable caution.

Meanwhile, as Paris, Bamako, ECOWAS and the United Nations continue to debate the possibility of a military intervention against the AQMI/MUJAO/Ansar Dine alliance in northern Mali, the chief-of-staff of the Algerian Gendarmerie, Maj-Gen. Ahmed Bousteila, has convened a meeting of Gendarmerie commanders from all the wilayas bordering on Mali and Libya (Adrar, Bechar, Illizi, Ouargla, Tamanrasset and Tindouf). Held in the town of Tamanrasset on Oct. 16, the meeting appears to be mainly concerned with reviewing and optimising border patrols, the Gendarmerie’s border guard units being in the front line in the fight against arms smuggling and other contraband, as well as infiltration/exfiltration of elements linked to AQMI or allied armed groups.

END

[1] As it stands, the Hydrocarbons Law is already a strange hybrid: first conceived by then Energy Minister Chakib Khelil as a very liberal piece of legislation, offering international oil companies hitherto unparalleled access to Algeria’s upstream and midstream oil and gas sectors, it was to a large extent vitiated by amendments imposing a minimum 51% stake for Sonatrach in all upstream ventures and slapping a hefty ‘windfall tax’ on IOCs’ production when global oil prices exceed $30/barrel (which of course they have ever since).

[2] The example of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has influenced Bouteflika in the past, may conceivably have an impact on the President’s personal outlook.

[3] The approximate size of the multilateral force that has been proposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to reconquer northern Mali.

[4] In his Sept. 25 speech presenting his government’s programme to parliament, Sellal proclaimed that « a strong internal front will protect Algeria against malevolent hands that seek to attack the country’s stability and unity of the Algerian people. »

[5] See WSSR 120418.

[6] There was also an incident on Sept. 5, when police manning a checkpoint at the entry to the Béjaïa port opened fire at car that tried to force its way into the port. But it is not clear whether this was the work of jihadists or in anyway connected to terrorism.

[7] Sic. Apparently referring to the SA-7, Russian-made MANPADS, equivalent to the American Stinger.