Algiers Attacks Show Maturing of Al-Qaeda Unit
New Tactics Gain Notice

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 13, 2007

BERLIN, Dec. 12 -- Until last year, al-Qaeda's affiliate in North Africa was an isolated bunch of desert and mountain guerrillas, struggling to attract recruits, money and attention. Tuesday's bombings in the heart of Algeria's capital are the latest sign that the network has improved on all three fronts since swearing allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

By targeting the Algerian Supreme Court and U.N. agencies, the attackers sent a defiant message to Algerian authorities and undermined the government's claims that the group's demise is near. They also served notice that no part of the country is safe from their reach, ending a decade of relative calm in heavily guarded Algiers.

Counterterrorism officials and analysts said the Algerian network's operations have become much more sophisticated since al-Qaeda adopted the group in September 2006, announcing a formal partnership and urging the Algerians to focus on French, U.S. and other foreign targets.

Since then, the local al-Qaeda branch has moved its fight from the Algerian countryside, where its pattern of attacks on police stations and military barracks had received little publicity outside North Africa. By recruiting suicide bombers -- a new phenomenon in Algeria -- and targeting civilians, the network has learned quickly that it can seize global attention.

"I don't think this implies the terrorist danger from the group is any greater, but rather that it's just become more efficient," said George Joff¿, a North Africa researcher at Cambridge University in England. "The tactics have changed."

An obscure faction once known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat took on a new name, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in January. (Maghreb is an Arabic word for the region of North Africa stretching from Libya to Mauritania.)

In April, it bombed the Government Palace in the center of Algiers and a police station on the edge of the city, killing 33. The explosions were the first suicide attacks in Algeria since the 1990s, when the country was mired in civil war, and the worst violence in the capital in more than a decade. In September, bombers targeted a convoy carrying President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, missing him but killing 22.

Meanwhile, the group has reinvented its propaganda wing, creating a polished Internet operation that lionizes its "martyrs" within hours of an attack and includes narrated videos of past bombings.

"It's remarkably sophisticated," said Evan F. Kohlmann, a New York-based analyst who studies Internet use by terrorist groups. "It's one thing to carry out a suicide bombing. It's another thing to record video of the attack at the same time."

Last December, the al-Qaeda affiliate penetrated a protected military zone in Algiers, bombing a bus carrying foreign oil workers for U.S. contractor KBR. The Algerian driver was killed and nine passengers were hurt. The attackers later posted a video of the attack as well as footage of how it was organized. One segment showed the plotters using the Internet to consult the Google Earth satellite image site to track the bus's likely route.

The network began distributing its videos on the Web three years ago. The first production, titled "Apostate Hell," was blurry and looked like "amateur hour," Kohlmann said. Since then, the group has set up a permanent Web site with recruiting pitches and footage of fighters assembling bombs.

Kohlmann said that it was unclear why authorities had not shut down the site but speculated that they prefer to monitor it instead. Webmasters in Europe, particularly in Germany, provide crucial support to the group's Internet operations, he added.

The North African faction has direct connections to the media arm run by al-Qaeda's central leadership. About 12 hours after Tuesday's bombings in Algiers, a brief assertion of responsibility was posted on the al-Hisbah Islamic Network, a password-protected site that releases video announcements by bin Laden and his deputies.

That statement and a more detailed assertion were posted later on the Algerian group's permanent Web site. It included photos of the two men who allegedly carried out the bombings.

One depicted a smiling, gray-haired man, identified as Ibrahim Abu Uthman, who by the site's account drove a truck loaded with 1,800 pounds of explosives into the office complex housing several U.N. agencies.

Nine U.N. staff members were killed, U.N. officials in New York said Wednesday, after mistakenly announcing the day before that 11 had died.

The attack was the worst on a U.N. target since the August 2003 bombing of the organization's headquarters in Baghdad. Twenty-three staff members were killed in that attack, prompting the United Nations to pull out of Iraq.

On Wednesday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the world organization would not do the same in Algeria. "Our colleagues in Algiers would ask no less," he said.

The other bomber, identified by the al-Qaeda Web site as Abdul Rahman al-Asimi, blew up a van outside the Algerian Supreme Court about 10 minutes before the U.N. attack.

The combined death toll remained unclear.

The Algerian Interior Ministry said Wednesday that 31 people were killed and scores injured. Speaking on national television Tuesday night, Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem said the official figures represented "the real toll." He added: "We have nothing to hide, and every drop of Algerian blood counts for us."

But rescue workers and hospital officials in Algiers said the number was far higher. El Watan, a leading Algerian newspaper, reported that the bombings took 72 lives. The daily El Khabar, citing health officials, put the total at 67.

Special correspondent Munir Ladaa contributed to this report.