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Mali and Algeria Fight AQIM |
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In May, Mali and Algeria began preparing to get tough on AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). For much of the past six weeks, however, AQIM appeared to be on the offensive. In Mali, an AQIM affiliate executed a kidnapped British citizen, Edwin Dyer, and appeared to be behind the assassination of Colonel Lamana Ould Cheikh, an army officer with responsibility for hunting militants. Meanwhile, militants claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Algeria.
Mali and Algeria are responding in different ways. Today, Malian forces captured an Al Qaeda base in the Sahara near the border with Algeria, killing “at least twelve” while losing five of their own soldiers.
For its part, Algeria is considering offering amnesty to militants who renounce violence:
The plan is to widen a limited amnesty already on offer to include the leaders of Algeria’s insurgency — excluded from previous offers on the grounds they had too much blood on their hands after nearly two decades of violent attacks.
A similar amnesty was used in Saudi Arabia as part of a strategy that helped defeat a three-year al Qaeda campaign there to destabilise the ruling family, and Yemen is trying to implement a similar scheme.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has raised the possibility of a wider, “general” amnesty in the past few months but statements from senior aides and members of the ruling elite indicate the idea is now closer to being implemented.
“Any measure, including a general amnesty, that could help to stop violence is welcomed,” Abdelaziz Belkhadem, influential leader of the ruling National Liberation Front and personal representative of Bouteflika, said earlier this month.
An upsurge in violence in the past few weeks showed the militants, operating under the banner of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), are still able to threaten stability in Algeria, an OPEC member and the world’s fourth largest gas exporter.
The group this month killed a British hostage, Edwin Dyer, it had been holding in Mali, to the south of Algeria. In Algeria itself, insurgents killed five paramilitary gendarmes southwest of the capital and a week later shot dead nine soldiers.
Overall though, security analysts say the number of attacks has declined sharply in the past few years and security forces have been gaining in strength.
The thinking behind the amnesty is that against this backdrop, many militants are ready to surrender if they are offered immunity from prosecution.
Potentially, these strategies can complement each other. It seems the problem of AQIM has at least two sources: lawlessness in the Sahara and political crisis in Algeria. Perhaps a show of government force in Mali will address the issue of lawlessness, while some form of amnesty in Algeria could supplement ongoing security efforts in Algeria and help resolve the political animosity there.
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