Inside Al Qaeda by Gunaratna Rohan;

Author:Gunaratna, Rohan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science/Political Freedom and Security/General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2011-12-11T16:00:00+00:00

France

Britain is regarded by Al Qaeda as an integral part of its network on the European continent and in terms of operational planning and execution the parent organisation in Afghanistan draws no distinction between them. Before the 9/11 attacks and Prime Minister Blair’s immediate willingness to send British forces to aid the Americans in the Afghan campaign, Al Qaeda had always perceived France to be its principal enemy, largely because of how it props up the anti-Islamist governments of North Africa, notably in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Particularly detested was French assistance for the Algerian authorities after they abrogated the 1991 election results that would have brought to power a democratically elected Islamist government. As such, Al Qaeda’s strategy was founded on using the rest of Europe as a means of targeting France. Initially, the Islamists were keen to attack foreign, largely American, targets on French soil but later the threat shifted to French objectives. Due to terrorist incidents perpetrated on its soil by North African Islamists, France’s security services are among the best informed and most active in their attempts to counter Al Qaeda.59

Beginning in the early 1990s, Al Qaeda conducted a massive practical and ideological infiltration of FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) and other Algerian Islamist political parties and terrorist groups with the aim of demonising France among Algerians, including the large émigré community living in Paris, Marseilles and other big cities. The formidable impact of sustained French political and financial support for the Algerian state since 1992 is explained in FIS’s publications:

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