Free Preview of Members-Only Content

Al Qaeda’s North African node allegedly announced Aug. 22 that a recent attack against a former Islamist rebel leader in Algeria was carried out by one of its militants without consulting the group’s leadership.

The group posted the statement to an Islamist Web site, claiming that the Aug. 14 car bomb targeting Mustapha Kertali — the founder of the Salvation Islamic Front who took up a government amnesty and renounced violence in 1999 — was never ordered by the al Qaeda Organization for the Countries of the Arab Maghreb (AQCAM) and took place without the group’s knowledge. It goes on to say that the attack “is a mistake and we assume its repercussions before God and our Muslim nation.”

The statement follows a report in the Algerian media by an AQCAM defector, Benmessaoud Abdelkader, who told the local al Watan newspaper Aug. 15 that there has been a severe ideological division in the group since it pledged its support to the al Qaeda network, and that dozens of foreign fighters have deserted AQCAM after becoming disillusioned with the group. AQCAM promptly denied the statement.

There is reason to believe that these communiques are part of a disinformation campaign by the Algerian government to create the perception within the country — and among prized foreign investors in the energy sector — that the jihadist threat has waned considerably. The Algerian press is not what one would describe as free by any means, and there have been numerous reports in recent months exaggerating the military’s successes against Islamist militants in counterterrorism operations. It is not every day that a militant group would come forth and broadcast that it lacks command and control and has operatives who carry out attacks against prominent former rebel leaders without the leadership’s permission. Virtually anyone could post a statement on an Islamist Web site, and it is common strategy for governments to hijack militant Web sites in psychological warfare campaigns.

Even if these reports are inflated and Algiers is paying top dollar to defectors to put out these statements, the government does not need to exaggerate much to expose the weaknesses of AQCAM.