The period since the bloody In Amenas hostage-taking in Algeria is reminiscent of the period after 9/11, when I was being asked who or what al-Qa'ida was. In this case, it is al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, that is the subject of sudden interest.
AQIM has actually been around since 1998 when it originated as the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) which was itself a splinter group from the brutal Armed Islamic Group (GIA). The GSPC changed its name to AQIM in January 2007 for the same reasons terrorist groups usually adopt the al-Qa'ida brand: for religious legitimacy, better networking opportunities and access to sponsorship; to better attract potential recruits, and so on. The US views such affiliate groups as being directed by al-Qa'ida when the reality is a very loose association.
GSPC/AQIM has been a proscribed terrorist organisation in Australia since 2002 because of its aim of using terrorism to displace Western interests in North Africa, and create a regional emirate under sharia law.
From 2005 onward, concerted counter-terrorism campaigns by Algerian security forces have put GSPC/AQIM on the defensive in northern Algeria. Under this pressure, AQIM moved south into the Sahel region, enhancing the importance of the group's Mali-based battalions for training, recruitment and fundraising operations. These battalions were able to base themselves in relative safety in the vast, ungoverned north of Mali, and AQIM launched an increasing number of attacks in Mali and Mauritania, including against Westerners, with some forays into Niger.
Two recent events were game-changers for AQIM. The first was the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Libya, ill-advisedly supported by NATO, which led to chaos in Libya and the opportunity for AQIM to re-arm itself with modern weapons and large supplies of military ordnance.
The second was the power vacuum created by the coup in Mali in March last year, and the Malian army's loss of interest in the country's northern region. This encouraged the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (northern Mali) to announce last April that it was seceding, allowing well-armed AQIM to become the dominant military force in Mali's north.
The deployment of French forces on January 11 to stop AQIM's advance south will have both benefits and costs for AQIM.
The main benefit is that it will unite opposition groups in Mali's north, who otherwise lack ideological common ground, against the infidel-led coalition. On the cost side, it will slow down AQIM's advance south into "African" Mali and west and east into the neighbouring countries of Mauritania and Niger.
The French intervention in Mali was the stated reason for the In Amenas attack, carried out by an AQIM splinter group led by Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
However, Mokhtar had probably planned the attack long before the French intervention.
He is a longstanding member of GIA/GSPC/AQIM; over recent years he has been head of AQIM's southern Sahara brigade, also known as the Katibat Moulathamine or Masked Brigade.
Some reports suggest that Mokhtar had a major falling out last year with AQIM leader Wadoud over his unpreparedness to accord Mokhtar the emir status that would allow him to aspire to the leadership of AQIM -- and that Mokhtar split, or was expelled, from AQIM late last year. Over the past five years, he had become a very successful local warlord in the Sahel region, engaging in narcotics and cigarette smuggling, and the kidnapping of foreign tourists and workers for ransom.
This created the perception among the AQIM leadership that he was more interested in money and power than in supporting the group's religious aims.
Since last August, a number of Mokhtar's rivals to lead AQIM have been killed by Algerian security forces. It is possible that Mokhtar is portraying the In Amenas attack as a reaction to the French intervention in Mali, when in fact his main reason was to burnish his credentials for AQIM's leadership. At the same time, it was an opportunity to fill his coffers with ransom money.
What Mokhtar did not anticipate was Algeria's quick counter-terrorism response, intended to prevent any destruction of the important oil and gas facility and avoid a situation where Algeria's hardline policy towards terrorists would be compromised by hostage negotiations, at the behest of weak ransom-paying countries like Japan.
Western criticism of Algeria's heavy-handedness has been muted because the US, EU and France now need Algerian counter-terrorism co-operation against AQIM more than Algeria needs them.
