This Spotlight has been significantly altered following some very helpful suggestions from Bill Lawrence of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. CDI appreciates his input and welcomes comments upon our work.

The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) emerged from the conflict that followed independent Algeria's aborted democratic transition. After gaining independence from France in 1962, the country was ruled by the Front de Liberation National (FLN) or National Liberation Front, the party that led the decolonization struggle. Social unrest increased in the 1980s amid economic decline, and after a series of strikes and youth riots in the late 1980s, the FLN allowed the country's first multiparty elections. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a coalition of moderate and radical Islamists, won landslide victories in the municipal and local elections of 1990 and the first round of parliamentary elections of 1991, but the second round and the election was annulled because the military did not wish to see such a government formed. The cancellation of elections led to a "palace coup" in which the president resigned and the presidency was taken over by a five man military council led by General Nezzar. At least 9,000 FIS supporters were then arrested, tortured, and interned in large Saharan detention camps.

A loose network of new guerrilla groups and resistance fighters appeared during this crackdown in February 1992, formed by young, angry militants bent on overthrowing the regime and bringing the FIS back to power. From the beginning, some of the "Armed Islamic Groups" (GIAs) were infiltrated by government agents and have been involved in carrying out some of the government's dirty business. Some were aided by international militants and radicalized Algerian mujahideen "Afghans" returning from their victory over the Soviets. Jane's Defence Weekly reports that approximately 2,800 Algerians trained with the U.S.-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent of any country. Of the 1,000-1,500 that returned to Algeria in the late 1980s, between 400 and 1,000 "Afghans" became members of the various armed groups. These radicalized groups expanded the struggle from military and government targets to intellectuals, journalists, and civilians. In January 1993, most of the groups united under one controlling emir and became known as the GIA.

Two of the GIA groups had a falling out in 1994, and following a massive jailbreak of FIS political prisoners, various groups coalesced to form the rival AIS which was recognized by the FIS in exile as the legitimate armed wing of the FIS, refocusing on governmental and military targets. The GIA, under sustained pressure and infiltration by the military, split back into many "little GIAs" which were involved in factional fighting. While the AIS militants specifically refer to the annulment of the elections as the major factor in their rebellion, the GIA characterized itself as Muslims fighting infidels and apostates.¹ From 1992 to 1998, the violence reached the status of a civil war, with a widely accepted figure of some 100,000 deaths, averaging 1,200 a month.² The State Department's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism has listed the strength of the group for some years as a vague "several hundred to several thousand." Another source gives the GIA strength of 700,³ while the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies gives a figure of less than 1,500 in small groups, 50-100 strong each.⁴

The GIAs have had a number of known leaders. Mourad Sid Ahmed, alias Djafaar al-Afghani, was its first emir, formerly a mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan. He was shot along with nine others in Algiers by Algerian security forces on Feb. 26, 1994. Ahmed Abu Abdallah, or Sherif Gousmi, became head of GIA after the death of Mourad Sid Ahmed. Reportedly only 26 years old, he was killed by Algerian security forces on Sept. 26, 1994.⁵ Djamel Zitouni then became head of the group until he was killed in 1996 in factional fighting. It has been widely reported in Europe based on interviews with a number of exiled ex-intelligence officers and diplomats that Zitouni was working with authorities to turn French and Algerian public opinion against the Islamic insurgency.⁶ Under Zitouni, the GIA hijacked an Air France flight to Algiers in December 1994, and was blamed for an assassination and a series of subway bombings in France in 1995. After substantial success in his mission to galvanize world opinion against the GIA, Zitouni was killed by members of his own forces in July 1996. He was succeeded by Antar Zouabri, former head of the GIA's Green Battalion, and considered the most extremist leader of an armed Islamic group in Algeria. During this period, intimidation and "score settling" between GIA, government, and paramilitary groups led some of the most vicious civilian bloodletting. Zouabri was killed by Algerian security forces on Feb. 8, 2002, in the midst of a gun battle at Boufarik, near the capital Algiers. On April 15, 2002, the group named its new leader, Rachid Oukali, alias Abou Tourab. The group's activities have been hemmed in since the government-AIS cease fire, which effectively eliminated much of the armed opposition, and are now confined primarily to certain rural areas. Its base or headquarters has been variously reported as being in the regions of Algiers or Blida.

When the AIS declared a cease fire in 1997, followed by amnesty and "civil concord" agreements in 1999, the GIA remained in resistance, and the GSPC stepped in the role of resistance targeting government and military objectives in contrast with more brutal GIA attacks on civilians. While some exiled GIA operatives have joined in supporting terrorist operations in Europe and North America, most GIA fighters have concentrated on local objectives in Algeria and have little interest in al Qaeda style global war.

The GIA told all foreigners to leave the country under threat of death in 1993, and between September of that year and 1997, the GIA has been accused of killing over 100 foreign nationals, mostly attacking "soft targets" in rural areas. Attacks on foreigners have dropped dramatically in the past several years, although four Russians were killed in January 2001 while picking mushrooms in a forest near Annaba. The GIA is best known for its mass revenge killings against civilians, but a number of attacks ascribed to the GIA have been called into question by new controversial books published in France by dissident military officers in exile and survivors of the massacres.⁷ Whole villages have been wiped out in the space of a few hours, sometimes within a few meters of military barracks. At one point in 2000, human rights groups put the rate of killings at 300 a month by all sides in the conflict,⁸ and the January 2003 Human Rights Watch World Report for puts the 2002 figure at 125 per month.⁹

While the GIA is clearly to blame for much or most of the violence against civilians, the government and its security forces have been responsible for some of the civilian attacks. There is no question from a wide variety of sources that there has been infiltration and disguised GIA attacks in order to weaken popular support for Islamists by continuing the trail of violence.¹⁰ Of 300 documented massacres, several can now be attributed to the government or pro-government paramilitary groups.

U.S. assets connected to the group were suspended by President George W. Bush in late 2001. At the same time, it was reported that several GIA members were located in North America.¹¹ There are also thought to be at least several hundred Algerian Islamic militants outside Algeria. The future of the movement is linked to the slow development of Algerian politics as the country has been controlled to a significant degree by the same coterie of military officers for several decades. The lessening of such control might reduce the incentives for armed resistance to the government and brutal attacks on the population, but at present, that day seems far off.

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Colin Robinson CDI Research Analyst crobinson@cdi.org

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