Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is using an estimated $100 million earned between 2003 and 2010 from ransom and drug trafficking to procure weapons for use in terror operations in Algeria and Mali say Algerian security officials, according to Africa News. But these dollars will certainly be earmarked for activities against the French homeland as well experts say.
AQIM claimed responsibility for the abduction of seven foreigners on September 16, including five French nationals, a Togolese and a Madagascan - in the Niger uranium-mining town of Arlit, which Osama bin Laden claimed in an October 27 video tape was in response to "France's oppression of Muslims". Discussing France’s new face-veil ban, bin Laden said:
"If you unjustly thought that it is your right to prevent free Muslim women from wearing the face veil, is it not our right to expel your invading men and cut their necks? It is a simple and clear equation. As you kill, you will be killed. As you capture, you will be captured. And as you threaten our security, your security will be threatened."
According to Al Jazeera, AQIM in the Sahara-Sahel was a creation of the Algerian intelligence agency, the DRS (Direction du Renseignement et la Sécurité), with its three main emirs in the Sahara-Sahel - Abdelhamid abou Zaïd, Yahia Djouadi and Mokhtar ben Mokhtar (all with many aliases) - being strongly suspected of being DRS agents.
Since 2008 the group's estimated strength doubled from around 200 to some 400 and its composition changed. As young Mauritanian Islamists have become increasingly attracted to the Sahara Emirate, as they call it, so they have come to outnumber Algerians. AQIM recruitment from young and more 'Islamist' and 'jihadist' elements in the region leapt in the wake of the disastrous Franco-Mauritanian raids into Mali on July 22, ostensibly to liberate the French hostage Michel Germaneau, and again after September 16 when France's ally ('proxy') Mauritania, which had joined France in 'declaring war' on AQIM, was given a very bloody nose by AQIM fighters at Ras el Ma (west of Timbuktu).
Most of Algeria's neighbors have accused it of being responsible for the development of the AQIM terrorist threat in the Sahel, as Jeremy Keenan writes:
Cheikh El Moctar Ould Horma, Mauritania's minister of health, recently 'suggested' that Algeria was the 'porte-parole' (spokesperson) for AQIM; elements in the Moroccan media have accused Washington of appeasing Algeria in its relationship with and use of AQIM as a 'terrorist' organization; a senior member of Mali's security forces accused the DRS of being 'at the heart of AQIM'; Niger is angry with the role played by Algeria's DRS in the political destabilization of its northern regions; while Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's leader, has suggested euphemistically that the problem in the region is Algeria's DRS.
Algeria, however, with the broad support (or what Morocco might call appeasement) of the US, has been using AQIM's presence in the Sahel to further its own hegemonic designs on the region. It is therefore strongly opposed to any external intervention and has consequently established, somewhat theatrically, a number of regional security-intelligence institutions that are exclusive to Algeria and its three weaker neighbours - Mauritania, Mali and Niger - and thus designed to maintain Algeria's management and control over the situation.
Olivier Guitta of The National believes pulling off a spectacular attack on French soil would lend a huge boost to AQIM's credibility within the larger Al Qaeda organization. While AQIM is reported to have sleeper cells all over Europe and a logistical network to support them, the French authorities have so far thwarted their plans before they became operational. When the third-ranking member of AQIM was arrested last year, he was reported to be on his way to France to co-ordinate multiple attacks.
One of AQIM's favorite targets is also the Eiffel tower, considering the group hijacked a plane in 1994 and wanted to crash it into the historic monument. French Special Forces stormed the plane and thwarted the plot and acting on credible intelligence from Algeria last month, French authorities evacuated the Paris landmark twice.
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