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By Fred Burton Spanish newspaper El Periodico reported Nov. 20 that Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) -- which recently swore allegiance to al Qaeda -- has...

By Fred Burton

Spanish newspaper El Periodico reported Nov. 20 that Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) -- which recently swore allegiance to al Qaeda -- has been instructed to form a unified command with Morocco's Islamic Combatant Group, Libya's Islamic Fighting Group and several Tunisian groups, most notably the Tunisian Combatant Group. The new organization reportedly will be called The Union of the Arab Maghreb. The newspaper cited Spanish anti-terrorism intelligence sources, who said the information regarding the creation of the new unified network was derived from a plan Moroccan police discovered in one of several raids over the summer.

The al Qaeda concept of creating a unified group of "Qaedat al-Jihad in the Arab Maghreb Countries" is not new. Moroccan authorities discovered plans for such a union in late 2005, when raids targeting several suspected militants turned up messages sent by leaders in the region to Osama bin Laden. In those messages, leaders reportedly discussed a plan for the GSPC to officially join al Qaeda and then unite jihadists in the Maghreb countries -- in many ways conforming to the pattern established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who united jihadists in Jordan and Iraq. Significantly, the GSPC effort would also strive to unite North African militants living in Europe into a cohesive paramilitary entity.

El Periodico's report would seem to confirm that plans for the pan-Maghreb merger have proceeded. Other signs of traction came from Ayman al-Zawahiri, who said in a Sept. 11, 2006, message that GSPC had joined forces with al Qaeda in a union he hoped would be "a thorn in the neck of the American and French Crusaders and their allies, and an arrow in the heart of the French traitors and apostates." Al-Zawahiri went on to say, "We ask Allah to help our brothers of the GSPC to hit the foundations of the Crusader alliance, primarily their old leader the infidel United States, praise be on Allah." On Sept. 13, GSPC acknowledged the merger on its Web site with a message from its emir, Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud, who wrote that, "We have full confidence in the faith, the doctrine, the method and the modes of action of [al Qaeda's] members, as well as their leaders and religious guides."

The fact that al Qaeda pressed on with plans for a Maghreb merger, despite the arrests of more than 50 suspects in Morocco and the fact that the plan was exposed, indicates that the group (and its new local subsidiaries) has some compelling reasons to do so. As Stratfor has noted, acting alone, the GSPC has been unable to derail the peace process between the Algerian government and the country's main Islamist movement, Front Islamique du Salut (FIS). Militant groups in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya are also struggling to gain traction in their respective countries. Linking with each other and al Qaeda will provide them with a boost -- and will provide al Qaeda an important new geographic base and operational arm.

The Motives for Mergers

The plan to unite the disparate militant groups operating in the Maghreb under al Qaeda's banner makes perfect sense from the jihadist perspective. (The name proposed for this new network should not be confused with the Arab Maghreb Union, a pan-Arab trade agreement aiming for economic and political unity in Northern Africa).

Since its foundation, al Qaeda has applied the principles of unity and strength in numbers. The declaration by the so-called "World Islamic Front" in 1998 of "jihad against Jews and Crusaders" was signed not only by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri (who represented what was then an independent group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad), but also by representatives of Egypt's Gamaah al-Islamiyah, Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan and the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh. Al Qaeda leaders later forged close ties with groups such as Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines and Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia.