Algeria: Islamist militants, apparently affiliated with al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, seized a natural gas facility in east-central Algeria early Wednesday. The 20 or so attackers took as hostages up to 41 foreign supervisors, technicians and workers. They include at least 13 Norwegians and seven Americans, plus one Irishman, and a number of Japanese and British citizens. Two workers died in the attack.
The group announced that this attack was in retaliation for the French use of Algerian airspace to mount their attack against Islamist rebels in Mali. The attack group reportedly is led by a militant named Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian. He claimed that his group would release the hostages if the French stopped their operations in Mali.
During this Watch, Algerian forces have surrounded the plant and the situation is in a standoff.
Comment: Despite French warnings about retaliation, this plant in eastern Algeria undertook no increased security measures. The salient features of the Islamists in Mali to date are their organization and discipline. Today's action adds to their military repertoire communications connectivity with sympathetic groups in Algeria. The Islamists threatened retaliation over the weekend and they have been as good as their word.
Today's attack and hostage-taking occurred a long way from Mali. The al-Qaida franchise in the Saharan region is far more sophisticated and coordinated than the Pashtun and Uzbek tribal fighters in Afghanistan or the tribal Arabs in Yemen. Southern Algeria appears to be their base of operations, not LIbya.
Mali: Malian and French ground troops clashed with Islamic rebels in Diabaly on 16 January. The French-Malian force has not yet recaptured the village.
Mauritania reportedly has increased its border patrols, reducing the rebel ability to operate with impunity from Mauritanian territory.
Comment: A prominent narrative in the English language press is that the jihadists and Islamist rebels who seized northern Mali, plus their weapons, came from Libya. In fact, the information in the public domain indicates they came from Algeria and maintain connectivity with other Algerian Islamist groups. The attack at the gas facility at In Amenas, Algeria, tends to reinforce that judgment.
The significance is that the Islamist takeover of northern Mali was not a ripple effect from the inept NATO management of the Libyan uprising. It is a more sinister and well planned expansion of the Algerian Islamist rebels, who form the core of al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. These are tough guys.
The French are not fighting Libyan terrorists in Mali. They are fighting Algerians [armed by Americans] …again. Apparently several thousand of them.
Phi Beta Iota: [PBI insert above]. NIGHTWATCH is a breath of fresh air in comparison to the stink of what comes out of the US “intelligence” community. CIA was / is arming Syrians out of Libya, but the Pentagon and CIA are so profligate with their weapons transfers that they are surely arming all terrorists and insurgents (mostly the latter, terrorism is a tactic, not a movement) that cannot get their hands of preferred Soviet weapons that flooded Africa during the wars of national liberation. The US Government likes to talk about ungovernable areas — the US Government never acknowledges that those areas are ungovernable because corrupt governments have failed to deliver common services, been unbearably corrupt, and therefore have lost all legitimacy. There is no intelligence and no integrity in how the US Government conducts policy today, either domestic or foreign.
See Also:
Chuck Spinney: Break Syria, Mali, Niger? Do We Really Want to Keep Making a Costly Mess?
Graphic: A Short Story-Terrorism as a Boil
Graphic: Mali Food Insecurity, Refugees, & Islamists
Graphic: Map Syria Iran + Syria-Iran-Rergional RECAP
Mini-Me: Why Are US and France Invading Mali?
NIGHTWATCH: Mali, Islamic Fundamentalism is NOT Al Qaeda, Slow Learners
NIGHTWATCH: Syria & Libya Update – US Poor Judgment Faulty Intelligence on Multiple Levels
Review (Guest): The Dark Sahara: America’s War on Terror in Africa
Review: Authentic Chuck Hagel, America–Our Next Chapter–Tough Questions, Straight Answers
