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Al-Qaeda's Far-Reaching New Partner
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"The GSPC, they saw the handwriting on the wall," the U.S. counterterrorism official said. "If they just stuck to fighting the Algerian government, all they would be is a minor thorn in their side. So they had to reach out."
In Europe, meanwhile, the group has revived dormant networks of Algerian radicals who emigrated after the outbreak of the civil war 15 years ago, counterterrorism officials said.
In 1994, Algerians from the GIA hijacked an Air France jet and planned to crash it into the Eiffel Tower, but a commando unit stormed the plane and rescued passengers. The next year, another GIA cell carried out bomb attacks on the Paris subway.
The same group planned attacks during the 1998 World Cup in France. But French police disrupted the plots and initiated a continent-wide round of arrests that effectively knocked out the organization on European soil.
In reconstituted form, the Algerian underground in Europe is no longer fighting solely for a national cause. That has enabled it to recruit large numbers of Tunisians, Moroccans, Syrians and other extremists who do not hold a stake in the Algerian conflict, said Xavier Raufer, a terrorism specialist at the University of Paris and a former French intelligence officer.
In July, for instance, German authorities arrested a 36-year-old man of Moroccan descent in the northern city of Kiel and charged him with recruiting fighters to go to Iraq. Prosecutors said he was a member of al-Qaeda and knew members of the Hamburg cell that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Last November he had traveled to Algeria to receive explosives training at a GSPC camp.
In March, eight Moroccans and a Tunisian were arrested in Casablanca and accused of planning attacks in Italy, with targets including a church in Bologna and the Milan subway system, Moroccan and Italian officials said. The cell was charged with working on behalf of the GSPC and taking orders from a deputy in Algeria.
Many of the Salafist group's foot soldiers in Europe have never been to Algeria, but are motivated to join the network because of Islamic anger over conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, Raufer said. "For them, it's an easy time," he said of the recruiters. "When they preach, a lot of people are furious. A lot of Muslims are outraged at what's going on."
Staff writer Colum Lynch in New York contributed to this report.
