Terrorist strikes hit Algeria and Lebanon this week. Was this an act of revenge by Al Qaeda? If so, are the two incidents connected?
I wondered about this all week. Then I checked in for my weekly dose of the Mosaic Intelligence Report, and coincidently, Jamal Dajani, the producer of the show asked the same questions.
If anyone is interested, I have included a link to the episode.
http://www.youtube.com/...
Here is also the complete transcript if anyone needs it...
TRANSCRIPT
This week, two car bombs exploded in the Algerian capital, killing at least 62 people and injuring scores more. A day later, a top general in the Lebanese army was killed when a powerful car bomb exploded beside his vehicle in a residential suburb of Beirut.
Is there a connection between these two brutal attacks? ---I believe there is.
The perpetrators in Algeria are easy to track. The pictures of the two bombers, Abdul-Rahman al-Aasmi and Ami Ibrahim Abu Othman, appeared on the website of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. The organization claimed responsibility for loading two cars with 800kg of explosives in a bid to attack the headquarters of the "international infidels' den" – that is, the UN building.
Back in January 2007, the leader of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud pledged allegiance to Bin Laden and promised to wage a violent campaign against the government of Bouteflika and the West.
Despite similarly devastating suicide attacks in the capital of Algeria and an assassination attempt on President Bouteflica, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has been losing ground to the Algerian government. Many of its members have been killed or arrested. The recent attack on a soft target like the UN headquarters was nothing short of a desperate act of revenge for its fallen commanders who according to the group’s website are fighting the "slaves of America and the sons of France."
The situation in Lebanon is a little more complicated; nevertheless, the assassination of General Francois al-Hajj, the chief of operations in the Lebanese army, cannot be explained as Lebanese politics as usual. Although al-Hajj is the ninth prominent Lebanese to have been killed since February 2005, when former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, was killed in a truck bomb explosion, attacks against members of the Lebanese security services are rare. So... who is responsible for his assassination?
General Francois al-Hajj earned nationwide praise for his role in the three-month battle this summer with Fatah al-Islam, an Al-Qaeda-inspired faction that was based in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon. As head of military operations, Hajj played a prominent role in the confrontation as well as in organizing the deployment of Lebanese troops along the border with Syria through which militants and weapons are alleged to have been smuggled into Lebanon. His murder is a simple act of revenge by yet another Al-Qaeda inspired organization.
The emergence of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria and Fateh El Islam in Lebanon is no coincidence. The leaders of Al-Qaeda have advocated that the jihad spread to the Levant. In 2005, The number two man in Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote, "It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established...[and] the center would be in al-Sham [the Levant] and Egypt." Earlier this year he urged his followers in Al Maghreb to target France, Spain and Algeria.
I am Jamal Dajani, for the Mosaic Intelligence Report. To learn more about this program or to share your thoughts visit us at Linktv.org/mosaic