AQIM vows to avenge Uighur deaths in China

Al-Qaeda’s North African wing vowed to avenge the deaths of Muslim Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province by targeting Chinese workers in Algeria, according to Bloomberg. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said it will target the 50,000 Chinese workers in Algeria and Chinese nationals and projects across northwestern Africa, said Stirling Assynt, which has offices in [...]

CFR Reports on AQIM, Jemaah Islamiyah and Hizbullah

Backgrounder on Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or L’Organisation Al-Qaeada au Maghreb Islamique (Formerly Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat or Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat) by Andrew Hansen and Lauren Vriens
Backgrounder on Jemaah Islamiyah (a.k.a. Jemaah Islamiah)
Backgrounder Hezbollah (a.k.a. Hizbollah, Hizbu’llah)

Algeria mulls new amnesty to weaken al Qaeda

Reuters reports that support is building among Algeria’s ruling elite for a plan to offer a new amnesty to al Qaeda militants if they abandon violence that in the past few weeks has killed tens of people including a British hostage. The plan is to widen a limited amnesty already on offer to include the [...]

Interview with Boumediene

The interview is interesting to read because it confirms that certain activities of non Pakistani Arab men in Pakistan (working for an Islamic aid agency, renewing a passport at a foreign embassy inside Pakistan, engaging in dodgy domestic ‘reconciliation’ initiative) increased the interest of international security agencies.

Boumediene was working for an aid agency and [...]

Algerian “terrorist” chief apologies for past actions in letter from jail

Excerpt from report by Algerian newspaper Liberte website on 9 May
Amar Saifi, alias Abderrezak El-Para, has allied himself to the initiative undertaken by Hassan Hattab and other founding members of the Salafi Group for Call and Combat [GSPC; the group now known as Al-Qa'idah in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQLIM] on behalf [...]

UK House of Lords rules that Abu Qatada can be deported with diplomatic assurances to Jordan

The cases are RB (Algeria) (FC) and another (Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department and OO (Jordan) (Original Respondent and Cross-appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Original Appellant and Cross-respondent)
The unanymous judgment is a victory for the UK’s policy of relying on ‘diplomatic assurances’ that deported suspects will [...]

Orban and Others vs France: article 10 covers dissemination of witness accounts of torturer

The European Court of Human Rights issued a judgment in the case of Olivier  Orban and Xavier de Bartillat, chairman and managing director respectively  of Editions Plon. In May 2001 the applicant  company published a book entitled Services Spéciaux Algérie 1955-1957 (“Special Services:  Algeria 1955-1957”), in which its author, General Aussaresses, a former  member of [...]

Al-Qaeda leader to be tried on terror charges in Algeria in absentia

The leader of North Africa’s Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, will be tried in absentia with 56 others accused of terrorism and other crimes. According to Algerian daily, El-Khabar, the trial is scheduled to take place from the end of December to February.

Amnesty International Annual Report on 2008 – focus on terrorism issues

Amnesty International is calling for a New Global Deal on human rights, because of a human rights investment gap by world leaders.
“It’s not just the economy, it’s a human rights crisis – the world is sitting on a social, political and economic time bomb,” said Irene Khan.
Read the report from May 2009 on 2008’s events [...]

Nottingham’s ‘Al Qaeda Manual’ downloader threatened with imminent deportation

Hicham Yezza, an administrator at the University of Nottingham, and Rizwaan Sabir, a student, were both arrested on 14 May 2008 under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act on suspicion of the “instigation, preparation and commission of acts of terrorism”. Sabir and Yezza were then held for six days in detention and then released without [...]