Short Memories

The Washington Post/MSNBC article on the recent Algerian bombings linked to al Qaeda suggests that al Qaeda has a long reach and that it has infiltrated North Africa.

Al-Qaeda has rapidly extended its influence across North Africa by aiding and organizing local groups that are demonstrating a renewed ability to launch terrorist attacks in the region, such as the triple suicide bombings that killed 33 people here last month, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts.

The bombers who struck the Government Palace and a police station in Algiers, the capital, are believed to have been local residents. But Algerian authorities are examining evidence that the bombers were siphoned from recruiting pipelines that have sent hundreds of North African fighters to Iraq and perhaps were trained by veterans of the Iraqi insurgency, U.S. and European intelligence officials said.

I think the article misses out on what has happened over the past 20 years.

Al Qaeda got its start in Africa. The USS Cole was hit in Yemen and the dual bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania showed that al Qaeda had a potent capability in Africa. Porous borders and failed states on the continent enable al Qaeda to spread without being detected. The jihadi ideology further enables al Qaeda to spread its message.

The Iraq conflict, combined with the Afghanistan campaign put al Qaeda on the defensive. They had to respond to both campaigns. Infidels in the heart of the Islamic world could not be tolerated, and yet al Qaeda has been decimated there. They need to take the pressure off their remaining al Qaeda thugs, so have attempted to do so by launching attacks elsewhere in the world. Algeria is a good launching point from which to go after Europe and other parts of Africa because of its central location and proximity to unstable failed states in Africa from which al Qaeda can grow its manpower relatively undetected.

And with the porous European borders, the concern is that once inside Algeria, it is a quick hop into Europe to launch attacks.

The article makes the leap that the Iraq campaign has spread the jihadi war to Africa and into Europe, and ignores the recent past to do so. Al Qaeda has had a presence in Africa for more than a decade.