Will the Sound of Car Bombs in Algeria Reverberate in Europe?
One of the more worrisome aspects of the recent car bomb attacks in Algiers by the GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) is whether it signals additional danger for Europe as well.
Jamestown.org calls the GSPC "the forward base of Jihad in Europe", especially in Italy. The Times Online in the past has suggested that GSPC's ambitions are not purely Algerian, but regional. "Zawahiri’s reported intention in creating the new al-Qaeda in the Maghreb is to unify jihadist factions in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya under one banner." The Washington Post, in an article last year reported that "the Algerian network has rapidly transformed itself from a local group devoted solely to seizing power at home into a global threat with cells and operations far from North Africa."
The network also has planted deep roots in Europe. In the past year, authorities have broken up cells in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, including one group that allegedly plotted to shoot down an Israeli airliner in Geneva. On Sept. 1, the French Anti-Terrorist Coordination Unit issued a statement classifying the group as "one of the most serious threats currently facing France," Algeria's former colonial master. ... "Until 2001, the GSPC wasn't trusted by the rest of the international jihad," said Louis Caprioli, former director of international counterterrorism for the DST, the French counterintelligence service. "That's when the GSPC started to become international. It used to be focused solely on Algeria." One way to think about the GSPC is not as 'just another al-Qaeda' franchise but as a group in strategic partnership with al-Qaeda in the commodity market of terrorism.
posted by wretchardthecat at 12/11/2007 11:14:00 AM
26 Comments:
Europe is still treating the War Against Terror (and I hate that name) as a police action.
A few excerpts from Bill Rogio:
Police across Europe arrested 20 suspects believed to be involved with the recruitment of suicide bombers in Iraq and
Afghanistan. "During the arrests, police found al Qaeda manuals for the production of explosives, detonation devices, and various poisons," CNN reported."The manuals also included details of guerrilla-style war operations."
Turkish police arrested a man involved in the foiled Germany bombing plot.
Spain arrested six members of an al Qaeda in Iraq recruiting cell; the cell was led by an Algerian and a Moroccan. France arrested seven members of an al Qaeda in Iraq recruiting cell that operated in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.
Germany has charged "Thaer A.," a Jordanian, with assisting with the setup of an al Qaeda cell in the Sudan. "The aim of this group was to open up a front against the 'crusaders' in Sudan and waging a holy war as called for by Osama bin Laden."
One of the key suspects in the plot to attack US airbases and other installations in Germany is on the run inside Britain, German security officials stated. Ten other members of the cell have escaped German authorities.
Ironically, rather than the Europeans waking to the danger, it seems more likely that if Obama or Hillary gets elected America will return to the anti-terrorist philosophy which enabled the 911 attacks!
One of the more worrisome aspects of the recent car bomb attacks in Algiers by the GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) is whether it signals additional danger for Europe as well.
The only mystery is why there is even any speculation upon this. Europe's totally flaccid and enabling multiculturalist policies literally guarantee waves of such attacks. This article pretends as if last July's failed car bomb atrocity in London did not already happen. It was only because of a single officer's immense courage that total "carnage" did not happen outside of the Tiger Tiger nightclub.
Sadly, somehow the Madrid and London atrocities were not enough to militate Europeans against their Islamic colonizers. The EU's enthusiastic collaboration in the Eurabia Pact almost assures that Europe will only awaken in time to fall back upon its favorite method of dealing with such unpleasantness. If history is any indicator, the charnel house doors will once again swing wide as Muslim blood runs in the gutters. The only other alternative is Europe becoming an Islamic outpost.
Not only that, Germany and France have a history of paying ransom for hostages, which in turn finances more terrorist acts.
If you travel back 1,500 hundred years or so a European empire far grander than anything that exists today committed suicide by reaching out to the "other" for manpower and labor. Today's EUrocrats are not one bit smarter than the Roman bureaucrats who also thought they could manage the problem with their superior intellect.
It seems so obvious it's frightening but Muslim immigration will surely bring an end to European history.
Peter: It seems so obvious it's frightening but Muslim immigration will surely bring an end to European history.
What goes around comes around. European immigration brought an end to Native American history.
Peter Grynch: Ironically, rather than the Europeans waking to the danger, it seems more likely that if Obama or Hillary gets elected America will return to the anti-terrorist philosophy which enabled the 911 attacks!
Obviously this philosophy was adopted by the Bush Administration, because 911 happened about 9 months after he took office.
A truck bomb famously chased the UN from Iraq. Will it do the same in Algeria?
I love this: "The first car bomb exploded outside the Supreme Court in central Algiers. By malign chance, a bus carrying students to a nearby law faculty happened to be passing and took the full force of the blast."
Malign chance? Bad for the students? Bad for the terrorist? Bad for both? Are not car bombs by their nature malign? And if the bus were packed with world leaders, would that be bonne chance?
The American Indians faced overwhelming numbers and technological superiority. The EUrocrats are willingly succumbing to a cultural underclass to feed the government pig, and their sinecures, for a few more years. There is a big difference. For one it was unavoidable.
teresita: What goes around comes around. European immigration brought an end to Native American history.
I was wondering just how long it would take for your self-loathing to surface. Are you a Native American? If not, you have just demonstrated the usual revolting attitude of "blame the white man for everything wrong with this entire world". It is this bromide that permits the Left to unashamedly embrace Islamic terrorists without a thought given to how Islam would just as soon see them all dead.
You have some serious problems with cognitive dissonance, teresita.
I'm half Sioux. I feel I am blessed with my citizenship in the greatest nation ever to exist upon the earth, even if it means I'll never kill a buffalo from horseback or see three out of five of my children fail to make it to their first spring.
Carry on, by all means...
Why shouldn't the Islamowhackos start carbombing in Europe? They've had their ass handed to them in Afghanistan and Iraq and probably need time to build up their "cred" again.
what comes around goes around...
perhaps al-Harakat al-Islamiyya
will bring about the end of christian philippino history
Elijah: perhaps al-Harakat al-Islamiyya
will bring about the end of christian philippino history
I don't think so, Elijah, on Pentecost Sunday I went to St. Joe's Cathedral in Butuan City, Mindanao, and it was packed. The Cathedrals in Europe are nice backgrounds for tourist photos, but that's about it.
The most abject poverty in the State of Arizona exists on the Federal Indian Reservations.
In his testimony before Congress, John Echohawk, director of Native American Rights Fund, called it "yet another serious and continuing breach in a long history of dishonorable treatment of Indian tribes and individual Indians by the United States government."
Arizona Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, bluntly called it "theft from Indian people."
These men were describing the single largest and longest-lasting financial scandal in history involving the federal government of the United States.
Revenues from such sources are held in more than 387,000 Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts managed -- or according to detractors, "mismanaged" -- by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). "The BIA has spent more than 100 years mismanaging, diverting and losing money that belongs to Indians," Echohawk says. "They have no idea how much has been collected from the companies that use our land and are unable to provide even a basic, regular statement to Indian account holders."
It is not self loathing that blinds me, amigo. It's theft and mismanagement, by the Federals, of other peoples money. Upwards of $100 BILLION dollars, over 100 years.
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Terisita,
"Native Americans" is a politically incorrect label. They prefer the term "Indigenous Casino Owners".
Under the Clinton Administration a special Blue Ribbon Commission on airline saety was formed, chaired by none other than Nobel Laureate Al Gore.
The Gore-chaired aviation safety commission held its first executive session on September 5, 1996, and on September 9 submitted its tough preliminary report to the president.
It issued a report recommending twenty-six proposals for enhancing air safety, including bulletproof cockpit doors.
At a press conference on September 9, Vice President Gore declared his strong support for these proposals. But this support did not last for long.
“Within ten days, the whole [airline] industry jumped all over Al Gore,” commissioner Victoria Cummock, a citizen activist whose husband was killed on Pan Am 103, would later claim.
As the Boston Globe would report five years later, this pressure took the form of an intense lobbying campaign aimed at the White House.
On September 19, Gore backed off the proposal in a letter to Carol Hallett, president of the industry’s trade group, the Air Transport Association.
By the time of the presidential election, other airlines had poured large donations into Democratic Party committees: $265,000 from American Airlines, $120,000 from Delta Air Lines, $115,000 from United Air Lines, $87,000 from Northwest Airlines, according to an analysis done for the Globe by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks donations. In all, the airlines gave the Democratic Party $585,000 in the election’s closing weeks. Over the preceding 10-week period, the airlines gave the Democrats less than half that sum.
http://www.cashill.com/terrorism/al_gore_2of3.htm
tmjutah: I'm half Sioux. I feel I am blessed with my citizenship in the greatest nation ever to exist upon the earth, even if it means I'll never kill a buffalo from horseback or see three out of five of my children fail to make it to their first spring.
Excellent perspective, fellow American. I'm glad to say that even the buffalo herds are coming back. You can spend your live living "what ifs?", or get over it and embrace the future. Clearly, you are ready for what's to come.
desert rat: It's theft and mismanagement, by the Federals, of other peoples money. Upwards of $100 BILLION dollars, over 100 years.
And exactly how are the Europeans to blame for this? I know that's probably not your point and I agree that the reservation system is a blot on our federal government. However, as an American, I refuse to take on White Man's Burden over things that were done both not in my name and over a century before me.
Righting these wrongs would be nice. I'll happily vote for any equitable method of doing so, with the stress on equitable. Please note that I think reservation gaming rights are NOT one of these methods.
None of this changes teresita's monstrous desire to see Europe put to the torch because of what happened centuries ago. Imagine Notre Dame's incredible Rose Window being used as a bull's eye for target practice. Michaelangelo's David sledgehammered into rubble, the Mona Lisa and all the Old Masters' oils heaped upon a bonfire. This is what Islam wants for Europe and all of the Western world.
I will sooner see every Muslim on earth perish before sacrificing some of the most priceless artistic works and architectural treasures of all humanity to some barbaric scum who chop off heads, hands and clittori.
peter grynch: "Native Americans" is a politically incorrect label. They prefer the term "Indigenous Casino Owners".
Bwahahahahahaha!!!
What history would that be Teresita? One of the unspoken truths about the European conquest of the Americas was the divided nature of the local tribes, who constantly sought to use the Europeans as a "super-tribe" to wipe out their neighbors. American Indians were well-adapted to their local environment but when faced with higher-trust networks that enabled modern weapons and the society that produced them, American Indians failed. The only noteworthy achievement of American Indians civilization wise was the human-sacrifice-based Aztecs and Incas, complete with a tyranny akin to the worst of Xerxes.
No one can argue that American Indians produced any great art, architecture, writings, paintings, or lasting political systems. Much of the Muslim world has the same problem -- it is one thing to construct car bombs under PC-Multicultural systems. It is another to face a finally aroused people who see all Muslims as the existential enemy to wiped out as a matter of survival. Which is where Europe is eventually heading. Some Napoleon or Caesar will seize power as the natural protector of Europe's oppressed natives who see themselves besieged.
What is also clear that we'll see the same thing here -- car-bomb-a-palooza. The Senate quibbles about waterboarding. Gitmo. "Torture." These are luxuries for a people who feel themselves safe as houses. When the car-bombs start going off, we won't waterboard. We'll hang by the neck until dead in public, in front of the other prisoners. THAT will be the least of it.
The West's advantage is superior mobilization of resources, spread down to the ordinary man. It's why Muslims are poor, Europeans/Americans rich, and American Indians were conquered. WHEN not if we act, particularly if restrained from even reasonable measures in the false sense of security, it will be as ugly as the firebombing of Tokyo.
Word, whiskey_199.
Algeria, isn't that full circle to the start of modern jihad when the denizens of the back alleys of the Casbah crept out to slit French throats in 1955? The more things change...
The French tortured back and committed atrocities that would make waterboarding look like something out of Emily Post. Unfortunately the wad was spent in Indochina and the French lost heart. Now the sons of Ben Bella burn the suburbs of Paris. There's a lesson there somewhere.
From MIPT terrorism Knowledge base,
"The GSPC has usurped GIA as the primary terrorist force in the country, and because of its minimal attacks against civilians, GSPC benefits from a larger support network in the country. According to some reports, GSPC has also been able to take over many of GIA’s contacts with other extremists, including al-Qaeda allies. GSPC has publicly pledged its allegiance to many of these terrorist entities, and also officially pledged its allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2003. In early September 2006, Ayman al-Zawahiri publicly approved the merge of al-Qaeda with GSPC. The latter officially announced its name change in February 2007 in a public announcement following six near-simultaneous attacks of police stations in towns east of Algiers.
The article also states the groups members have been linked to London bombings, evidence not so firm, and to the fellow who attempted to blow up LAX. The tactics of the group, staying away from civilian targets makes it more popular than its predecessor GIA, but just as dangerous and just as prone to making the population weary of their antics. How now, to play to that weariness, in the Maghreb and in Europe?
"Sadly, somehow the Madrid and London atrocities were not enough to militate Europeans against their Islamic colonizers."
The Spanish judges found that the ringleader was not guilty because it was not proven that he was directly involved in the physical bombing.
davod said: "The Spanish judges found that the ringleader was not guilty because it was not proven that he was directly involved in the physical bombing."
We're back to my point that the Europeans are treating terrorism as a police matter rather than a war. One of the German terrorists convicted of planning the 911 attack got a year in jail. That's less than a day for each victim he helped murder. And the Europeans consider us "barbaric" because we still impose the death penalty.
Is it possible that the danger to Europe from Islam is overstated?
There may actually exist a strong bond. Where does the name Iran originate? I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of Euro/Islam do really enjoy a stronger bond than is being realized.
For sale at the German branch of Amazon, many varieties of that well-known symbol of Palestinian terrorism, the kaffiyeh—and in case you had any doubt about the symbolism, they’re helpfully labeled: “PLO Pali Tuch (PLO Palestinian Garb).”
davod: The Spanish judges found that the ringleader was not guilty because it was not proven that he was directly involved in the physical bombing.
Which has exactly ZERO to do with how the Madrid atrocity was driven by Islamic terrorists.
Peter Grynch is correct in noting just how inadequate to the task it is for terrorism to be dealt with as a police action. Islam has clearly declared war upon the West. It is only through a combination of cupidity and willful ignorance that this goes unnoticed.
Europe will continue with its blithe disregard of this peril until a major city disappears in high temperature plasma. Then they will set about murdering every Muslim within arm's reach.
If not for Islam's total intransigence, it would be a mystery how Muslims manage to completely ignore that their doctrine is pushing them straight into the West's military and nuclear meat-grinder. As whiskey_199 noted, eventually there will arise a Napoleon or Caesar who will abruptly end all this nonsense with the sort of violence that that Islam's mullahs can only dream of.
The thing that bothers me is, once the radical part of Islam provokes Europe enough and the inevitable Hitler or Napolean or whoever does their thing, then we'll have to deal with THEM. Then there'll be a REAL dustup, and neither they nor we will like the outcome.
I wonder at that point will they be angry with us for not warning them of the Islamofascist menace back in the early 2000s?
A man I know gives horse therapy to troubled kids. He claims he can watch a person who's not used to handling horses for 5 minutes and tell a lot about them. If they give the horse their head too much, then they tend to overcompensate when the horse misbehaves. The people who keep a tight rein have less trouble with the horses acting up.
I think the Euros really need to tighten up their rein pretty soon, or there's gonna be trouble.
One thing that ought to scare everyone is Iran's production of HEU which makes no sense except for a "nuclear car-bomb."
HEU production in Iran is being pursued even though Russia, an ally has offered fuel at cheaper prices sooner -- which means electrical production is not the issue, HEU *IS*. HEU only makes sense for a "gun-type" bomb ala "Little Boy." Which are relatively simple and easy to construct once the HEU is on hand. Oppenheimer did not bother to test that device.
HEU "gun-type" devices however have limitations. They cannot be put on ICBMs, which is why Israel, India, North Korea, and Pakistan did not pursue them. They require bombers or ... shipping containers. Nuclear car-bombs.
Iran and it's terrorist organizations and allies KNOW how to use car and truck bombs. Both Hezbollah, Iran's organization, and AQ know this technology and the requirements quite well. Imagine a trailer with a "gun type" device.
Now, where would these be used? Israel has not much trade, particularly not in the volumes that allow containers to pass unmolested and inspected. And setting off even a few will only guarantee a counter-strike.
Western Europe is a target of course, particularly in allowing Iran to pose as Islam's protector in Europe. Both Chirac and Sarkozy have acted puzzlingly bellicose in response to Iran, very likely because they were threatened covertly not to do anything about the rioters.
But Iran's main focus is getting the US Navy out of the Gulf and Eastern Med so they can control it. The US Navy can easily defeat Iran. But our cities are sitting ducks to nuclear car-bombs.
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