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  • Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (aka Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat)
    By Andrew Hansen
    Backgrounder
    Updated: February 7, 2008

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  Armed Islamic Group (Algeria, Islamists)

  Updated: October 2005

  • What is the Armed Islamic Group?
  • How was the GIA formed?
  • What does the GIA want?
  • Whom does the GIA target?
  • Does the GIA have ties to al-Qaeda?
  • Does the GIA target Americans?

  ---

  What is the Armed Islamic Group?

  The Armed Islamic Group (known by its French acronym, GIA) is a radical offshoot of Algeria’s main Islamist opposition. Since the North African country plunged into a bloody civil war in 1992, the group has been linked to terrorist attacks in Europe and to the massacres of tens of thousands of civilians in Algeria. In the past few years, many GIA members have joined other splinter Islamist groups or have been jailed or killed in government crackdowns. The GIA is now thought to have between a few hundred and a few thousand operatives and is listed on the U.S. roster of foreign terrorist groups.

  How was the GIA formed?

  The GIA was formed out of a bitter struggle for control of Algeria between Islamists and the country’s authoritarian leadership. After winning independence from France in 1962, the country was governed by a socialist party called the National Liberation Front (FLN). Following a series of youth riots in the late 1980s, the FLN allowed the country’s first multiparty elections. When a party of moderate and radical Islamists called the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) won a round of parliamentary elections in 1991, the FLN nullified the victory and banned the FIS. The resultant public outcry turned violent, and the paramilitary wing of the FIS began targeting security forces. The GIA emerged as one of several radical FIS splinter factions that have continued to fight against Algeria’s FLN-supported, military-dominated regimes, from the government that ruled the country until 1999 to the current, more conciliatory leadership.

  What does the GIA want?

  According to the State Department, the GIA “aims to overthrow the secular Algerian regime and replace it with an Islamic state.” Beyond that, however, the GIA has not articulated precise political goals, and GIA cells are said to operate independently. Most recent GIA attacks are thought to be either acts of retribution, assaults on wayward members, or simple banditry.

  Whom does the GIA target?

  Both Algerians and others. The GIA’s massacres of civilians reached their height in the mid-1990s. Other GIA targets have included Algerian journalists, intellectuals, and secular schools. More recently, the GIA was thought to be behind two bombings in Algiers in August 2001.

  The GIA is also accused of killing more than one hundred foreigners, mostly Europeans, since 1993. The group has a particular disdain for France, the country’s former colonial ruler and a major supporter of Algeria’s military-backed regime. In 1994, GIA members hijacked an Air France flight, and in late 1999, a French court convicted several GIA members for a series of bombings in France in 1995.

  Does the GIA have ties to al-Qaeda?

  Possibly. Experts say that some GIA leaders may have had contact with Osama bin Laden while fighting in the 1979-89 Afghan war against the Soviet Union. Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network also includes some Algerians, and European authorities have arrested dozens of Algerian militants suspected of being al-Qaeda operatives plotting attacks on European cities, perhaps involving chemical weapons.

  But while the full extent of the connection between the GIA and al-Qaeda is unclear, experts say, it is probably at least somewhat limited. The GIA operates principally in Algeria, and its objectives are more local than al-Qaeda’s ambitions for a global holy war. But some intelligence officials say that al-Qaeda’s leadership is increasingly interested in using national Islamist movements such as the GIA to breathe new life into the wounded al-Qaeda network.

  Does the GIA target Americans?

  The GIA has not targeted Americans in Algeria. But some Algerian terrorists who have tried to attack the United States may be linked to the GIA. In December 1999, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian living in Montreal, was arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border with a carload of explosives; he was later convicted of plotting a millennium-eve attack on Los Angeles International Airport. Ressam has since led authorities to alleged co-conspirators in Canada and the United States.

   

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  In this POP, Adjunct Fellow Michelle D. Gavin suggests steps the Bush administration could take to promote political and ethnic reconciliation and to restore the viability of Kenya’s governing institutions.

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  In this paper, Senior Fellow Daniel Markey poses a set of recommendations for the United States to consider in response to Pakistan’s ongoing political crisis.

  

  

  A Citizen's Guide
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  To address the growing importance of Africa, the Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs present Beyond Humanitarianism, a collection of recent work that explains underlying trends on the continent and provides an absorbing look at Africa’s emergence as a strategic player on the world stage.

  

  

  May/June 2008

  • Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times calls "Beyond Darfur" by Andrew Natsios, an important article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.

  

  

  

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