Terrorism Focus

* Jihadi forums show concerns about Zarqawi's possible capture

* Kuwaiti officers arrested plotting to kill Americans

* Philippines: A foiled bomb plot and Abu Sayyaf fatalities

* A new al-Qaeda affiliate in Algeria?

IN-DEPTH:

* Al-Qaeda's diminishing returns in the Peninsula

* Algerian GIA group decapitated
* GSPC scores a major, but potentially costly, coup

Jihadi forums show concerns about Zarqawi's possible capture

Exchanges on jihadiist forums indicate anxiety over reports circulating of
Al-Zarqawi's capture at Ba'aquba. The report first emerged on January 4
carried by the United Arab Emirates newspaper Al-Bayan. There have been no
official declarations on his arrest, but media outlets throughout the Middle
East are repeating the report. Given that there is a history of accounts of
al-Zarqawi's death or capture most observers are maintaining a healthy
skepticism. Just last year news on this was circulated in April, June, July
and October, usually followed by dramatic indications of the premature
nature of the reports in the form of bombings and kidnappings. But what has
added some flesh to the fears of participants on the web forums is the
association of the news with first reporting by the Iraqi Kurdistan radio.
These were the first to give the accurate report on the capture by U.S.
troops of Saddam Hussein. What is verifiable is the arrest by U.S. forces
between December 8 and 12 in Ramadi of two close aides to Al-Zarqawi, Saleh
Arugayan Kahlil, also called Abu Ubaydah, and Bassim Mohammad Hazem, also
known as Abu Khattab. The pair were leaders of a cell called the ‘Harun
terrorist network' and the arrests were linked to tips-offs from Iraqi
civilians. This in itself is highly significant given the levels of
intimidation that have, until now, protected the group. If more indications
of this nature emerge, the credibility of the above reports will be
enhanced.

Kuwaiti officers arrested plotting to kill Americans

High ranking officers in the Kuwaiti army have been arrested on suspicion of
planning terrorist acts against American military and residential areas in
the emirate. The news provides more evidence of growing radicalism in
Kuwait, and of fallout from the conflict in Iraq. A report in the Kuwaiti
daily Al-Rai Al-Aam claimed the group was planning to attack U.S. targets
during the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast, due to fall on or around January 21.
According to the report, the chief suspects (whittled down from an original
15) held the ranks of major, sergeant, and corporal, and had links with
former servicemen who fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya. One of the suspect
officers had earlier attempted to go to Iraq to fight Americans there, and
the group was intending to transfer anti-American operations from Fallujah
to Kuwait. Military intelligence and state security operatives in the
emirate are at present conducting raids on locations associated with those
suspected of lending support to the terror network (www.alraialaam.com).

Further details of the plot were provided by the political daily
Al-Siyassah, which quoted unnamed sources that pointed to the suspects'
‘ideological links' with al-Qaeda. The U.S. embassy in Kuwait City said last
month that it had credible information that terrorist groups were planning
attacks in the region. An audiotape released on December 16 carried the
voice of bin Laden calling on mujahideen to strike oil installations not
only in Iraq but also in its Gulf state neighbors. The plans of U.S. army
and residential locations in Kuwait seized from the suspects appeared to
confirm this strategy (www.alseyassah.com).

Kuwait is now on a state of maximum security alert. Heavily-armed security
units stand guard over almost every government building, energy installation
and Western facility and almost the entire national guard and police have
been mobilized, along with army units. But accompanying this massive
security response is a vigorous campaign to downplay the threat. First
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sheikh Nawaf al-Sabah, has
denied media reports claiming that the security authorities had received
indications that Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's group was expanding the scope of
its armed operations to Kuwait. Similarly, the government has strenuously
denied a report by TV satellite station Al-Arabiyya, that security forces
had arrested two Islamist militants in the Hawalli district and uncovered a
carload of hand grenades and weaponry after an exchange of gunfire on a
state security building.

These incidents, plus the ongoing trial of some 22 members of a group
accused of recruiting fighters for Iraq, are pointing to what appears to be
an inexorable rise of anti-U.S. agitation in the emirate. They come after a
year-long lull in attacks on U.S. citizens, carried out by anonymous gunmen
and, in one case, by a Kuwaiti policeman, which have so far resulted in two
fatalities.

Philippines: A foiled bomb plot and Abu Sayyaf fatalities

A plot to bomb the Christian festival of the Black Nazarene, due to take
place in the Philippine capital Manila, was foiled on January 7. According
to a report in the Manila Times, a group of 14 suspected Islamic militants
were arrested assembling bombs. During the raid improvised explosive devices
and bomb components, including timing gadgets and cables were confiscated.
The annual procession attracts tens of thousands of devotees, and the human
toll of the explosions, had they occurred, would have been considerable.
According to the news report, the raid was part of a continuing
investigation into attacks undertaken by Islamists over the Christmas and
New Year's Eve festivals, during which a bomb was defused on a bus and an
explosion detonated in Cubao, Quezon City. The suspects of the latest
attempt were given as members of a ‘Return to Islam' movement, made up of
Christians who have converted to Islam (www.manilatimes.net).

Further south, at Sultan Kudarat province on the southern tip of Mindanao
Island, two Abu Sayyaf insurgents were killed, according to a report in the
Philippine National Enquirer. This brings to four the number of Abu Sayyaf
fatalities this week, as the security sweep by the Philippine Army tightens
its grip on the region. At present the military is in pursuit of 80
remaining member of the group in the hinterlands of Sultan Kudarat and South
Cotabato.

A new al-Qaeda affiliate in Algeria?

The fact that pressure from Algerian security forces may be forcing some
serious reorganization is hinted at by a cryptic note posted on the
Al-Ma'sada jihadist website. The note purports to be from the Tanzim
al-Qaeda fi Bilad al-Berber, or ‘The organization of al-Qaeda in the Land of
the Berbers'. This is a previously unknown group and thus merits monitoring.
The message indicated that on December 14 2004 the ‘Nur Brigade', previously
affiliated to the GSPC, was now announcing its allegiance directly to Osama
bin Laden and had appointed one ‘Sayf al-Din' as the local al-Qaeda emir in
the ‘Land of the Berbers' [www.alm2sda.net]. The terminology is consciously
modeled on the Jordanian Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's pledge of allegiance to Bin
Laden, and recalls the new name for Al-Zarqawi's group, the Tanzim al-Qaeda
fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, ‘The organization of al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two
Rivers', following al-Qaeda's inclinations to dispense with current
geographical denominations. Taken at face value the announcement could be an
indication of a re-organization prior to the re-igniting of the conflict
following a period of reverses. The posting elicited calls for further
clarification, or some official declaration, which have yet to be answered,
and which may cast doubt on its credibility. The issue is complicated by the
fact that the GSPC is already linked to Bin Laden, whose influence was
instrumental in detaching defectors from the GIA to form the GSPC group.
Former GSPC leader Nabil Sahroui, openly declared his allegiance to
al-Qaeda. However, to date the GSPC allegiance has been largely a formality,
with little evidence of participation in a ‘global jihad'. In light of
continuing evidence of low morale and defections from GSPC, the posting
string is worth watching carefully.

IN-DEPTH:

Al-Qaeda's diminishing returns in the Peninsula

The latest attempted bombing of the Interior Ministry building and the
Special Emergency Forces headquarters training unit at Riyadh on December
29, appears to spell out more evidence of al-Qaeda's decline in the
Peninsula. The bombings and related clashes with Islamist militants
accounted for a total of 90 injuries and the death of one bystander. The
cost to the mujahideen were five killed during the bombings (three of whom
from suicide detonations) and a further 10 hunted down in gunfights which
preceded and followed them. Three of the assailants were on the list of the
26 ‘most wanted' Saudi insurgents. One of those killed was a Yemeni by the
name of Ibrahim Ahmad Abdel Majeed al-Reemy, who is considered by some to
have been the actual leader of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and the link between
the terrorist network in the Kingdom and bin Laden. By all accounts, this
appears to be one of al-Qaeda's least successful attacks in the Kingdom to
date.

A statement from al-Qaeda posted on the al-Ma'sada jihadist website
(www.alm2sda.net) named the target of the attacks as the Kingdom's Interior
Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz, who was away at the time. The
statement also laid emphasis on the killing of ‘a number [unspecified] of
Crusader trainers killed in the Emergency Forces' headquarters and the
wounding of several of those forces,' which contradicts the figures given
out by the authorities. The statement ended with what may be a revealing
phrase: ‘We are determined to re-organize ourselves and prepare for new
exemplary operations'. While participants on jihadist forums attempted to
put a brave face on the lackluster results on the grounds that ‘bullets that
miss their mark still terrify', and praised the premature detonations as
tactical moves "to protect secrets that would come out at interrogation",
Deputy Interior Minister Ahmad bin Abd al-Aziz (also an intended target of
the bombings) described the attackers as having taken "a great risk because
they know that their end is imminent."

This theme of ‘reactive' or ‘go for broke' strategy has been gaining
currency. Saudi analysts have looked at the changing pattern of attacks, and
traced a more or less straight line from operations carried out in 2003
under the al-Qaeda leaders Yusuf al-Ayyiri and Khalid al-Hajj on western
institutions or personnel associated with the US military, to attacks on
western individuals without distinction under Ibn al-Muqrin. After
al-Muqrin's death, and conscious of weakening popular support, operations
focused more precisely on government installations of a military-security
type such as the bombing of the Public Security HQ on April 21 last year,
and these two most recent attempts — which may have been made less
productive for al-Qaeda from their selection of a late hour to avoid
civilian casualties. But increasingly, as Munif al-Sufuqi explains in the
Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat, the attacks have been triggered by security
forces closing in: "Those who are fleeing realize that their arrest is a
matter of time. This drives them to carry out terrorist acts that do not
have great impact." (www.aawsat.com)

However, as any reading of jihadist forums or of al-Qaeda-related literature
will elucidate, the effect of military defeat is not necessarily the
decisive factor. The Jordanian political analyst Murad Batal al-Shishani,
writing in the Arabic periodical Al-Ghad (www.alghad.jo), notes that the
operating motivation of the ‘Afghan Arabs', that make up the core of the
mujahideen in the Peninsula comes not so much from the era of anti-Soviet
struggle (they are too young to have participated) but from the more
ideologically charged era of the Taliban. While their transfer of activity
from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia was forced on them by crushing military
defeat, the influence of their Taliban phase has given them thicker skins.
Purist and absolutist mental habits dismiss the idea of failure in a
political, economic and cultural project that takes its credentials from the
Creator. Therefore, the move to the Peninsula is rationalized as the ongoing
development of a strategy from confronting the ‘far enemy' (the USA and the
West) to battling with the ‘near enemy' (the Saudi government). Success here
would provide a more promising springboard for the cause than Afghanistan
ever could. But an indication of the detachment of the mujahideen from
tactical facts on the ground is their slogan of "expelling the polytheists
from the Peninsula". Never mind that the U.S. military has removed itself
from Saudi Arabia, the mujahideen continue to use the slogan as an
ideological banner, rather than as a practical demand. This is because it is
a struggle whose dimensions simply dwarf the banalities of temporary
reverses on the ground.

Which is why mujahid vigor in the Peninsula is perhaps better gauged from
the state of the ideological output. The statement on the December bombings
posted by al-Qaeda carried the customary Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Jihad)
logo. It is a symbol which is less in evidence lately. Since mid-November —
much to the consternation of participants in the jihadi web forums — the
flagship web magazines Sawt al-Jihad and Mu'askar al-Battar have failed to
appear. These slickly produced publications gave solid expression to the
confidence of the Arabian mujahideen. If their absence persists, it may be
time, as al-Shishani suggests, for their absolutist mental habit to
rationalize a re-orientation of the struggle back onto the ‘far enemy.'

Algerian GIA group decapitated

"Le GIA est mort" ran the opening line of the Algerian daily Le Quotidien
d'Oran on January 4. The headline came a day after media speculation on the
fate of the GIA had been dramatically put to rest with the announcement by
the Algerian Interior Minister, Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, on public
television of the arrest of its current leader Nourredine Boudiafi, along
with a dozen other armed insurgents and support members.

The arrest took place back in early November in a suburb of Algiers, but the
two-month long campaign was kept under wraps while maximum use was made of
the information derived from the coup. There followed, according to the
announcement, multiple arrests, the location and destruction of arms caches
across the Mitidja and Chlef regions, and the initiation of a string of
forensic ballistic investigations aimed at establishing prosecutions for
massacres perpetrated since the mid-1990s.

According to a report in the Algerian daily L'Expression,
(www.lexpressiondz.com), from information gleaned from the arrests, the
security coup appears to have happened just in time to prevent a significant
recrudescence of GIA activity. Ballistic investigations are now focusing on
the killings carried out last November at Larbaa, Khemis Miliana, Hamdania
and Bougara, which appear to have been the starting point for a
re-penetration of the GIA into the capital.

According to Le Quotidien, Nourredine Boudiafi, it turns out, had engineered
the execution in the maquis of Chréa of his predecessor Oukali Rachid, alias
Abou Tourab, last July in order to advance his program of carrying the armed
struggle back onto the streets of Algiers. Preparations were well advanced,
with cell groups installed, along with support networks and hiding places
dotted around the city. At the same time Algerian security was intercepting
the process from the bottom up, avoiding striking directly at the emirs
until last November. That the GIA leadership was severely caught out by the
pace of events can be judged by the circumstances of the killing of
Boudiafi's hastily appointed successor, Chaâbane Younès. He was intercepted
and killed on December 1 at Chlef en route to the maquis of Tamezguida, near
Blida where he was to be officially invested that day as the GIA's national
emir. It was after this incident that the major arms stock of the GIA was
confiscated at Mitidja and Chlef (www.quotidien-oran.com).

The neutralization of the two emirs in quick succession (three in one year
counting Abou Tourab) looks set to finish off the GIA for good. Both
Boudiafi and Younès formed part of the kernel of hardline emirs – in the
tradition of Zitouni and Zouabri – and had received their training in the
Katiba al-Khadra phalange made up of former fighters in Afghanistan. Younès,
also known as ‘Lyès', had commanded and personally directed all the
massacres perpetrated between the years 1999 and 2003 against civilian
populations in the West of the country.

The opportunity provided by the arrests to flesh out the details of GIA
activity and strength in the country has allowed the security authorities to
put a figure to it: the GIA which used to number thousands of fighters in
the mid 1990s is now reduced to a matter of ‘some 30 activists split into
two groups occupying the hill plateau of Thala Acha, near Blida, and
Kouacem, straddling the provinces of Tissemsilt and Chlef, now being hunted
down by the security forces.' With the confiscation of ‘all the vehicles
used by the terrorists' along with the war chest of "gold stolen during
massacres undertaken at Raïs, Bentalha, Had Chekala and Ténès," over which
GIA emirs in the east of the country had fought internecine wars, it is
difficult to see how the GIA can regroup.

However, the reality is that the GIA has for long been the weaker of the two
operative Islamist insurgent groups in Algeria. The GIA was always a
movement in crisis, it has long been weakened by dissidence and has not
claimed responsibility for attacks in recent years. The organization never
recovered from the internal ructions of 1996-98, when its present-day rival
grouping, the GSPC detached itself from its parent formation, which was
losing popular support due to its indiscriminate killings, and began to
eclipse it. Since that time GIA violence has been marked as much by internal
score-settling as politically or ideologically motivated killings. It was
even rumored that in February 2002 GSPC leader Hassan Hattab tipped off the
security forces about the then GIA leader Anton Zouabri's presence at a
house in Boufarik – having called on Zouabri to meet there to discuss a
potential reunification of the two Islamist groups. Accession to the
leadership of the GIA has generally been through assassination of the
incumbent.

The value of the January 4 announcement is probably more on a psychological
than military level: a morale boost for the Algerian public, and a stronger
inducement for the remaining estimated 300-500 Islamist militants in the
country to throw down their arms. It is likely that President Abdelaziz
Bouteflika will add on further pressure by reinstating the offer of an
amnesty.

NOTE:

Since this report was written a posting on an Islamist forum has appeared
(January 5) purporting to be from Rachid Abu Tourab himself, denying the
reports of his death. Having stated that such premature reports have
occurred on three occasions, he insists that Algerian intelligence is
hopelessly muddled, confusing his identity as an emir of the Armée Islamique
du Salut (AIS) (which is now observing a truce with the government). Abou
Tourab then challenges the government to produce any information about his
identity, or any document demonstrating a link with the GIA. He signs off as
‘Rachid Abou Tourab the Algerian, Sunni Jihad Brigades, AIS.'
(www.alm2sda.net/vb/showthread.php?t=6381)

GSPC scores a major, but potentially costly, coup

While the GIA may be out for the count, the larger of Algeria's insurgent
groups, the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC)
announced its continued presence with a deadly ambush on a military convoy
at Biskra, 260 miles south of Algiers. According to the Algerian daily
L'Expression, a group of 50-60 insurgents opened the attack with a bomb and
then raked the convoy with machine-gun fire, killing 13 soldiers and five
civilians. The attack, which took two days to appear in the press, occurred
on the day as the announcement of the captured GIA leadership was made. The
operation, the deadliest since 16 were killed in the Medea region more than
three months ago, is believed to have been led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
Security sources say he had recently returned to Algeria from hiding in
Mali, and has been engaged in rallying hardline members in Algeria's south
(www.lexpressiondz.com).

The news of the attack puts some new complexion on Police Chief Ali Tounsi's
confident predictions made on December 18 that the remaining 500-600
Islamists in the country were all suffering from "collapsed morale" and
"waiting for the opportunity to turn themselves in to the authorities". Ali
Tounsi's comments were part of a ‘year in review' commentary where security
authorities expressed quiet confidence in their progress against insurgency
attacks. According to the official evaluation, the year 2004 saw a net
improvement in the security situation compared to preceding years. Since
2003 terrorist activity (where deaths from insurgent violence for the first
time dropped below 1,000) is said to have ‘decreased by 30 to 35 percent',
and even to have dropped by 25 percent in Boumerdès, Algiers and Kabylie,
the regions most affected by the phenomenon.

One yardstick on the level of coherence the GSPC is maintaining may be
provided by its own Arabic language website www.jihad-algeria.com. This has
long been a useful source for commentaries on jihadist activity and
alternative angles on insurgency matters reported in the press. Most notable
was the ‘Storm in a Teacup' article featured in the first (and so far only)
edition of their periodical Al-Jama'a, which dismissed the effects of
President Bouteflika's amnesty offer on its membership (on this see
Terrorism Monitor, Volume 2 Issue 15, A New Journal For Algerian Jihad).
However, for several weeks since a November 9 note on a minor operation in
Jijel, the website was not updated, and was even temporarily offline. Its
recent re-appearance and denial by the GSPC that anything was amiss,
featured in the Algerian daily L'Expression, (www.lexpressiondz.com) was,
nevertheless, unaccompanied by any new postings.

The one exception is a featured link to another jihadist website, a new
Iraqi magazine ‘Al-Fath' (‘The Conquest'), that first appeared in early
December, and which features an interview with the ‘Head of the Information
Committee' of the GSPC, Shaykh Abu Umar Abd al-Birr. In the interview the
Shaykh insists that the GSPC are receiving ample youthful reinforcements to
their ranks, and he pours scorn on official talk of the group being reduced
to fragments. Abd al-Birr maintains in the interview that the movement is in
fact growing. The fact that the military operations are not a daily affair
is not, in his view, an indication of the levels of their capability. He
concedes, however, that mistakes have been made: "most of them due to the
cunning of the intelligence services. But the mujahideen have learnt the
lesson and benefited from previous tribulations. They are now doing all they
can to support the cause and shore up the gaps" [Majallat al-Fath, Vol. 1,
p.11]. (The interview is the first of two parts, the second is to be
published in the following issue. When this appears, Terrorism Focus will
examine its contents).

Mokhtar Belmokhtar's re-appearance adds some weight to Abd al-Birr's
comments. Certainly by default, with Islamist activity in the north heavily
reduced, he now heads the most powerful terrorist group active in Algeria.
Originally Abderrezak El-Para's acolyte, his group has been operating in the
Sahel region and deep south of Algeria, supported by highly successful
contraband activities.

The question now is whether this last escapade proves to be a swan song. For
that is how the Algerian press is interpreting it, noting the flight of the
attackers into the triangle formed by M'sila, Biskra and Ouled-Djellal,
which is held to provide the best remaining protection and support network
for the insurgents. L'Expression notes the movement of heavy convoys of the
army and the Gendarmerie headed for Biskra and "hermetically sealing off
several hundred square kilometers". The operation, the paper comments, "will
have heavy consequences for the future of the GSPC".