Algeria Doesn't Need Lectures on Terrorism

Gaddafi might have been a monstrous tyrant, but from the Algerians' perspective he was a valued ally in fighting al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror cells. Algeria, remember, was involved in its own bloody civil war in the 1990s after the Islamic Salvation Front attempted to impose its Islamist rule on what is a predominantly secular country. An estimated 20,000 people perished in the decade-long struggle against Islamist militants, which the secularist National Liberation Front eventually winning the battle. Algeria's security forces have waged a low intensity campaign against Islamist militant groups ever since, and it was for this reason that Algeria bitterly opposed the overthrow of Gaddafi's regime, as the Algerians correctly predicted that Gaddafi's removal would open the way for Islamist extremists to fill the political vacuum.