The Al-Qaeda War Against France by iakovos alhadef - HTML preview

The essay explains that “by the grace of God to Libya, God bestowed upon this country a strategic position and immense potential. These are things from which it would be possible to derive great benefits if they were efficiently exploited. Unfortunately, some supporters do not recognize the extent of the Libyan arena, the proliferation of variant weaponry within it, its geographic dimensions and its critical environs. Sufficed to say, Libya looks upon the sea, the desert, mountains, and six states: Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Algeria, and Tunisia.”

The author emphasizes the unique potential of Libya as a springboard for a jihadist invasion of southern Europe. Libya, he writes, “has a long coastline and looks upon the southern Crusader states, which can be reached with ease by even a rudimentary boat and note that the number of ‘illegal immigration’ trips from this coast is massive, estimated to be as high as 500 people a day, as a low estimate. According to many [of these immigrants], it is easily possible to pass through Maritime Security Checkpoints and arrive in cities. If this was even partially exploited and developed strategically, pandemonium could be wrought in the southern Europe. It is even possible that there could be a closure of shipping lines because of the targeting of Crusader ships and tankers.”

The essay concluded by reiterating the geostrategic importance of Libya to the expansion of the Caliphate in and beyond the Greater Middle East. “My brothers, Libya, by the permission of God, is the key to Egypt, the key to Tunisia, Sudan, Mali, Algeria, and Niger too. It is the anchor from which can be reached Africa and the Islamic Maghreb.”

The author urged the takfiri jihadist trend to expedite the liberation of Libya before the West realized the threat Libya constituted itself and before the West would attempt to intervene anew in Libya. “It is imperative that the mujahedin move to try to prevent the continuation of [the Crusader] plan and fix the differences between Libyans so that they may direct their energies towards the real enemy, the real tyrants, those who have as their masters the Crusaders. If that happens, which it will, if God permits it, then no force will stand in the way of the mujahedin.

Not only will pressure on the land of the Caliphate in ash-Sham be relieved, but the territories of the Caliphate in ash-Sham, Iraq, and Hijaz will be linked with those of their brothers in Libya and the Islamic Maghreb and the defeat of all regimes and tyrants in their way will be enabled. That is not difficult for God.”

In February 2015, the Caliphate in eastern Libya was ready to surge into the jihadist center stage.

The KHI uppermost leadership concurred and facilitated the dissemination of the Libyan Caliphate’s message in its primary venue, Al-Hayat Media. On February 15, 2015, the Libyan Caliphate posted a graphic five-minute video titled “A Message Signed With Blood To The Nation Of The Cross”. The video began with the marching and beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts who had been recently kidnapped in Libya. Dressed in Guantanamo-like orange jump suits, the Copts were lined up along a beach and abruptly beheaded by black-dressed mujahedin. The camera then focused of the sea water red with blood.

A jihadist commander dressed in military fatigues delivered the message in American-accented English. “All praise is due to Allah the strong and mighty,” he declared at the start of the video. “And may blessings and peace be upon the ones sent by the sword as a mercy to all the worlds.” He connected the “End-of-Time Battle” in al-Jazira with the decisive surge on Christendom to be launched from Libya.

“Oh people, recently you have seen us on the hills of ash-Sham and Dabiq’s plain, chopping off the heads that have been carrying the cross for a long time, and today, we are on the south of Rome, on the land of Islam, Libya, sending another message.

“All Crusaders: safety for you will be only wishes especially if you are fighting us all together. Therefore we will fight you all together. The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah, we will mix it with your blood.”
After the jihadist leader finished his declaration, the line of mujahedin commenced the beheading of the 21 Copts kneeling in front of them. Once the slaughter was over, the commander stepped forward for a final statement.

“And we will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission, the promise of our Prophet, peace be upon him,” he declared.

http://www.worldtribune.com/archives/post-gadhafi-libya-morphs-country-jihadist-springboard-backed-iran-qatar-sudan-turkey/

 

“Chad–Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project”,

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The Chad–Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project is a controversial project to develop the production capacity of oilfields nearDoba in southern Chad, and to create a 1,070-kilometre (660 mi) pipeline to transport the oil to a floating storage and offloading vessel (FSO), anchored off the coast of Cameroon, near the city of Kribi. It is operated by ExxonMobil (40%) and also sponsored by partners forming the consortium, Petronas (35%) and Chevron (25%). The governments of Chad and Cameroon also have a combined 3% stake in the project.[1] The project was launched on October 18, 2000, and completed in June 2003 (the official inauguration took place in October of the same year).

It was largely funded by multilateral and bilateral credit financing provided by Western governments. The International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, provided $100 million of debt-based financing, and France's export credit agency COFACE and the U.S.Export-Import Bank each provided $200 million; private lenders coordinated by the IFC provided an additional $100 million.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad%E2%80%93Cameroon_Petroleum_Development_and_Pipeline_Project

 

“North Africa’s Menace : AQIM's Evolution and the U.S. Policy Response”

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In its earliest manifestation, AQIM was organized around the goal of ousting the “apostate” junta in Algeria. Only in more recent years has it officially joined Bin Laden’s global jihad and spilled outside Algeria into the Maghreb and the Sahel. While it has wrapped itself in the banner of global jihad, AQIM remains largely an Algerian organization focused on Algeria and North Africa. Understanding AQIM requires at least a brief historical excavation of its origins in the anti-colonial and anti-French context of Algerian politics of the early 1990s. It also requires understanding the connections of some AQIM leaders to the anti-Soviet jihad inAfghanistan in the 1980s. The anti-European, local, and anti-colonial dimension of AQIM’s history appears to be the group’s core driver, but the shared background of its leaders as mujahedeen in Afghanistan links it to a broader global current of Islamist militancy that also encompasses the core of Al Qaeda. These two interwoven strands of its historical origins are essential to understanding the group’s current nature and future direction.

Prior to 2007, AQIM went by the name Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC). In the late 1980s, the Algerian government undertook reforms ostensibly intended to open up the largely authoritarian, one-party system that had held power since Algeria won its independence from France in the 1960s. In 1991, when an Islamist political coalition was on the verge of winning control of the parliament, the Algerian military intervened, annulling the election and breaking up the Islamist parties. In reaction, some Islamists formed a terrorist group called the Groupe Islamiste Armé (GIA) and began a bloody insurgency against the government that lasted through much of the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, however, the devastation the GIA had inflicted onAlgeria’s largely Sunni Muslim citizenry had undermined its popular support. It was also viewed as having been thoroughly penetrated by Algerian government agents. In large part to escape from the pall that had grown over it, the GIA broke apart and the primary branch rebranded itself as the GSPC in 1998.

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Meanwhile, Bin Laden was increasingly seeking to export his brand and encourage the development of like-minded jihadi offshoots elsewhere in the world. Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan were also seeking to exploit longstanding tensions in France over the rights of French Muslim citizens, many of whom were from Algeria, by denouncing the French government’s allegedly anti-Muslim policies. Ayman al-Zawahiri, then Bin Laden’s deputy, for example, declared that France’s ban on headscarves in public schools and efforts to prevent families from punishing allegedly “debauched women” were insults to Islam. These proclamations appealed to the vehemently anti-French sentiments within the GSPC.6

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AQIM’s relationship with core Al Qaeda is essentially a marriage of convenience. The two groups can share the same basic jihadist outlook and gain from cooperation without sharing exactly the same goals or adopting the same strategies to achieve them. The groups can benefit from cooperating without any strict convergence in their intentions. They can share the same basic ideas but have very different capabilities

More fundamentally, even if Droukdal and others share a common background with Al Qaeda in Pakistan, their social and political environment differs in important ways from that of an Egyptian such as Ayman al-Zawahiri or a Saudi such as Bin Laden. From the parochial Algerian perspective of the GSPC, France rather than theUnited States is the “far enemy”—the primary outside nemesis in the struggle to realize the dream of an Islamist state under shari’a law. AQIM thus frequently plays on anti-colonial sentiment in its propaganda. Core Al Qaeda is a globally oriented organization with a multinational membership and a sweeping target deck, dedicated to removing regimes it considers apostate along with any semblance of Western presence in the Muslim world. For the GSPC, and now for the main body of AQIM,9 the dominant organizing principle has always been removing the regime in Algiers.

Of course, AQIM members detest the United States and would cheer to see Americans die. But the priorities of someone with Droukdal’s background—or that of his main recruiting base—differ from those of core Al Qaeda. Droukdal’s decision to side with Al Qaeda came at a moment when core Al Qaeda’s propaganda was attackingFrance—hardly a coincidence. For Al Qaeda’s core leadership in Pakistan, the chance to align with AQIM offered several advantages that had little or nothing to do with ideology. To begin with, the appearance of expansion to a new continent was good for public relations at a time when Al Qaeda faced worldwide counterterrorism operations. Expansion into Africa demonstrated growing reach, continued resilience, and the type of energy that wins recruits. AQIM, in other words, supports Al Qaeda’s global aspirations by its very existence; it need not attack the West to do so. Spawning affiliates also offered Bin Laden the hope of divertingU.S. and allied counterterrorism resources away from Pakistan. For him, as now for Zawahiri, AQIM can burden and distract the United States and its allies from Pakistan (although, of course, AQIM’s leaders may be less comfortable playing the role of decoy).

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AQIM today is thus increasingly fragmented. Similarly, the nature of its relationship with other militant and criminal groups in the region is fluid and changing with circumstance. AQIM’s cooperation with the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram and its offshoot Ansaru has attracted recent attention— in large part because the perpetrator of the attempted 2009 “Christmas bombing,” Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a Nigerian. Abdulmutallab, however, was linked to Al Qaeda via AQAP (Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula) and the relevance of his Nigerian background is limited. AQIM’s cooperation with Boko Haram and Ansaru also appears to have focused more on kidnappings and roadside attacks than on sophisticated terrorist techniques.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR415.html

 

“The Iranian-Saudi Proxy Wars Come to Mali”, August 2015

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/19/the-iran-saudi-proxy-wars-come-to-mali-shiite-sunni-islam/

 

 

“South Sudan – Oil”

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/south-sudan-oil.htm

 

 

 “Nigeria, Algeria agree to build Sahara gas link”, July 2009

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Nigeria, Algeria and Niger on Friday signed an agreement to build a multi-billion dollar gas pipeline across the Sahara that could send up to 30 billion cubic metres a year of supplies to Europe.

The idea of piping gas thousands of kilometres across the Sahara was first dreamt up more than 30 years ago, but the project remained on the drawing board pending a concrete agreement between neighbouring states and a clear funding plan.

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France's Total (TOTF.PA), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM) have all expressed interest in helping Nigeria's state-run NNPC and Algeria's counterpart Sonatrach in the project.

Gazprom and NNPC agreed to invest at least $2.5 billion to explore and develop Africa's biggest oil and gas sector, including building the first part of the Trans-Sahara pipeline. [ID:nLO549518]

Some analysts see Russia's keen interest in Nigeria as an attempt to maintain its grip on Europe's natural gas supplies.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/nigeria-algeria-pipeline-idUKL345766620090703?sp=true

 

 “Iran hails death of long-time ally Qaddafi as ‘great victory’”, October 2011

https://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/10/21/172895.html

 

“Sudan and Egypt: Friends or foes?”, October 2014

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The budding new relationship between Sudanese and Egyptian leaders is proving to be a curious one.

Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi met on Saturday in Cairo, and agreed to form a joint committee to deal with bilateral relations on the top presidential level. This followed Sisi’s first visit to Khartoum in June.

Reflective of the complexity and confusion in the wider region, where alliances are forged, broken and forged again as circumstances change, these two neighbouring countries, historically intertwined since antiquity, have been at odds after Egypt’s Mohammed Morsi was ousted. Each side has also been accused of arming and supporting rebels on either side of the Islamist/nationalist regional proxy war, particularly in Libya.

The Sudanese regime, led by an Islamist movement is accused of supporting Islamist rebels in Libya, Sinai and beyond. Sisi has continued a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since he took power.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/sudan-and-egypt-friends-or-foes-1104212263

 

“How al-Qaeda and Islamic State are competing for al-Shabaab in Somalia”, January 2016

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/12015075/How-al-Qaeda-and-Islamic-State-are-fighting-for-al-Shabaab-affections-in-Somalia.html

 

“Iran Seeking 60bn from Total Mitsui for Petrochemicals”, July 2016

http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=784670&news_type=Economy&lang=en

 

“France to send heavy weapons to Iraq – Hollande”, July 2016

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN10218A

 

“French jets bomb ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria; few may have been killed”, November 2015

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/16/middleeast/france-raqqa-airstrikes-on-isis/

 

“Paris terror attacks: ISIS bombed by France in new revenge airstrikes after president declares 'we are at war”, November 2015

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France has struck at the heart of Islamic State in a series of overnight bombings as the military continue to hit back following the Paris terror attacks.

The new strikes, which were carried out in the stronghold of ISIS in Raqqa, Syria, targeted a command centre and a recruitment centre for jihadists.

Carried out overnight, the strike included 10 fighter jets which were launched from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

It comes after French president Francois Hollande declared yesterday that France was "at war".

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/paris-terror-attacks-isis-bombed-6845176

 

“France's Saddam deals revealed”, October 2004

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Dramatic new details of France's secret dealings with Saddam Hussein's regime have emerged as part of a fresh corruption investigation into alleged illicit oil deals.

Three executives of France's largest oil corporation have been charged in Paris over claims that they funnelled millions of dollars through a Swiss company in order to bribe officials to gain oil deals in Iraq and Russia.

The disclosure will embarrass President Jacques Chirac as it follows on from claims last week by the Iraq Survey Group that Saddam indirectly paid French politicians and individuals to gain support for lifting UN sanctions and influencing French policy. The ISG's claims were dismissed by Chirac as politically motivated.

In the Nineties, French oil companies Total and Elf-Aquitaine won the rights to develop the $3.4 billion Bin Umar project and the vast Majnoon field in southern Iraq. Total, which acquired Elf, had been unable to exploit these fields while the UN trade embargo against Iraq was still in place. US hawks have accused France of opposing the Iraq war in order to protect its vast oil interests in the country. The three Total executives, arrested after raids on the firm's French headquarters on 29 September, have all been charged with complicity in the improper use of corporate funds.

French investigating magistrate Philippe Courroye, who has been probing these payments since 2002, is examining the movements of funds between a Total subsidiary in Bermuda and a Swiss company, Teliac SA. The Swiss firm is alleged to have served as an intermediary for some $20 million in payments by the oil group into offshore accounts in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands between 1996 and 2001. Courroye has not given any details of what oil deals the alleged bribes were linked to. Total's former head of operations, Jean-Michel Tournier, is alleged to have told the French authori