al-Qaeda for the day

The New York Times has an article by Dionne Searcey and Eric Schmitt and Rukmini Callimachi about the resurgence of al-Qaeda:

Only a few years after French troops (photo) broke up its desert stronghold and scattered its fighters into the dunes, al-Qaeda’s branch in West Africa has regrouped and extended its reach, storming into new territory across three nations.
The setting for its new attacks: fancy West African hotels where fighters can strike local elites and Westerners, many hundreds of miles from the militants’ former base in northern Mali. They have killed dozens of people in recent months, including sunbathers lounging at a seaside resort in the Ivory Coast, prompting the American military to call al-Qaeda’s West African affiliate one of the world’s most enduring Islamist terrorist groups.
Almost four years ago, the group, known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, (AQIM) had reached its zenith, ruling over a remote stretch of northern Mali the size of Texas. But, when it started creeping south toward the capital, Bamako, French troops rushed in, chasing the militants across the desert, where they are believed to have suffered catastrophic losses. Now the group is making a devastating comeback. Until relatively recently, it was best known around the world for kidnapping Westerners in remote parts of the Sahel and using the ransoms to support itself. But its recent assaults on three enclaves for expatriates and African elites, in the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Mali, seem to be patterned after the kind of big, shocking terrorist attacks carried out by rival extremist groups like the Islamic State.
“For AQIM, this is an evolution in terms of tactics and targeting,” said Andrew Lebovich, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who has tracked the group for years. “It shows a broadening of the group’s appeal and much more staying power than many people thought.”
The group’s latest attacks have put the entire region on edge. With each strike, extremists linked to al-Qaeda seem to be checking off countries on the map. They stunned the world by seizing the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in November of 2015, killing nineteen people. Then they crossed the border into Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast, pushing into new terrain. Western-friendly capitals known for religious tolerance are now especially fearful, wondering who will be next.
“No country in the world, even Senegal, is safe from an attack,” its president, Macky Sall, told reporters several weeks ago as armed guards in the peaceful country were dispatched in the capital, Dakar, along main roads and in front of hotels and shopping areas. Security in countries across the region has increased, with new barriers and metal detectors outside coffee shops and other businesses that cater to foreigners.
On Monday, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said it had attacked the resort area over the weekend in revenge because the Ivory Coast had handed over prisoners to Mali. But it also described the siege as part of its continuing “plan to target the dens of the crusaders and locations of their gatherings,” according to a translation released by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist organizations. “We repeat our call to all countries involved in the French invasion of Mali to withdraw from this satanic alliance,” it said.
With the carnage left behind, the attacks are pummeling the economy and psyche of the region. Tourism is declining, hurting hotels that are already spending more on security. Governments worry that it will be harder to lure international companies and organizations based in nations that have been hit are finding recruiting difficult.
American defense officials worry that the group’s push into new areas could have far-reaching ramifications. If the authorities chase the militants south, they risk letting up on patrols in the northern part of Mali. That stretch of sparsely populated desert, lined by lightly controlled borders, could become a new haven for the thousands of fighters with the Islamic State in Libya. The Islamic State appears to be pushing south, too, according to American military experts on counterterrorism in Africa.
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has had international ambitions since the central leadership of al-Qaeda bestowed member status on it in 2006. The group showed its muscle in 2007 with a major attack on a United Nations compound in Algiers, Algeria. Then, in 2012, its militants helped take control of roughly three hundred thousand square miles of terrain in northern Mali.
Among the group’s most notorious figures is Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed Algerian operative who has endeared himself to locals by setting up medical clinics and helping with livestock. Belmokhtar has been targeted in strikes and was rumored to be dead, but many analysts believe he is alive. He has sometimes argued with the leadership of al-Qaeda and its West African branch, resulting in a series of mergers and splits, including the creation of groups loyal to him.
After French troops swooped in to beat back the militants in Mali, Belmokhtar struck back in devastating fashion. He branched out with a new group, al-Mourabitoun, and seized more than six hundred employees of a gas plant in Algeria, killing nearly forty people.
But, in the ensuing months, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb suffered major defeats at the hands of the French. The group has long been plagued by infighting and, though it has been around for years, it has lost members to the Islamic State.
One of the militants involved in the 13 November 2015 attacks in Paris, France was a veteran of the jihad during al-Qaeda’s peak in Mali. The attacker is believed to have left Mali and joined the Islamic State in Syria before resurfacing as one of the suicide bombers at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, France. In all, American military officials say there could be as many as a thousand fighters with the Islamic State in Libya who came from sub-Saharan Africa.
The loss of fighters may be behind a new pact between al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun. The two announced late last year that they had joined forces and that the Radisson Blu attack had been their first joint venture.
Some analysts said the merger most likely signaled that the two groups’ leaders, Abdelmalek Droukdel and Belmokhtar, both Algerians and often rivals, had settled their differences, at least temporarily, to strengthen their brand in the face of defections to the Islamic State.
“AQIM and al-Mourabitoun are trying to say: ‘Look, we’re still alive. We’re here,’ ” said Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute and Dakar coordinator for the Observatory on Religious Radicalism and Conflicts in Africa.
In recent months, there have been other signs that al-Qaeda’s regional branch is rebounding. In March, gunmen stormed the popular Rue Princesse, a hip Bamako street lined with boutiques and nightclubs. They killed five people with machine guns and grenades at a bar, La Terrasse. Then, in August, the group hit a hotel used by United Nations workers in central Mali.
al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate has tried to use the attacks to stay relevant in a complex militant landscape. On Sunday, it even translated its responsibility statement for the Ivory Coast assault into multiple languages, including French, a marketing tactic adopted by the Islamic State.
The instability has proved trying for the region’s leaders. In the Ivory Coast, President Alassane Ouattara, who began his second term in the fall, is governing a split nation: many still support former President Laurent Gbagbo, who is facing trial on charges of crimes against humanity. Burkina Faso is still reeling from a short coup in September. The new president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, had not even named his cabinet ministers when gunmen stormed the Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino Café in January, killing at least twenty people. “Those who were in charge for a long time of the military intelligence and national security services have been replaced by newcomers who do not have the same expertise and experience,” said Paul Oumarou Koalaga, the executive director of Diplomacy and Peace International, based in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou.
The violence by an array of terrorist groups in Africa may itself be indicative of growing competition. One American military counterterrorism official said that Boko Haram, the extremist group that has terrorized northern Nigeria for years, might be trying to increase its body count to uphold the bloody standard of the Islamic State, to which it has pledged allegiance. al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in turn, seems to be trying to keep up with the bloodshed. Each of the militant groups competes for essentially the same things: recruits, credibility and cash, all of which are scarce.
Strikes on soft targets such as hotels are not particularly complicated, and far easier and cheaper to pull off than controlling large swaths of land. Even so, terrorist groups still need a source of money to help them hide out. The status of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s finances is unclear. While it has reaped sizable ransoms for the release of hostages, its kidnappings of a Swiss missionary and an Australian doctor and his wife, who were taken the same day as the Splendid Hotel attack, could indicate a need for more cash. This month, the group set free Jocelyn Elliott, the wife of an Australian doctor, Ken Elliott, saying it was doing so because of public pressure and to adhere to principles of not involving women in war. Officials in Burkina Faso say no ransom was paid.

Rico says that, if Rukmini Callimachi isn't a name to conjure with, he doesn't know what is... But if all this is their belated revenge for the Crusades, maybe it's time we do it again, only finishing the job this time...