The flow of foreign fighters into Syria, flood of armsacross North Africa, war in Mali and terror attacks highlight the jihadists'return in a region rocked by the Arab Spring. The combination of factors,following the absence of Al-Qaeda and affiliates from the Arab Spring revolts,has led to France's military intervention against Islamists in Mali and thedeadly hostage-taking at a desert gas plant in Algeria.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appearing beforeCongress over September's attack on the American consulate in the Libyan cityof Benghazi, warned of the new geopolitical landscape in the Arab world andNorth Africa. "We cannot afford to retreat now. When America is absent,especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takesroot, our interests suffer, and our security at home is threatened," shesaid. Clinton also highlighted "instability in Mali," saying it"has created an expanding safe haven for terrorists who look to extendtheir influence and plot further attacks of the kind we saw just last week inAlgeria." Russia went further, charging the Western military interventionin Libya was the root cause of the insecurity.
Despite their support for rebels fighting Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad, Western powers have also started to voice growing concern overthe influx of hundreds if not thousands of foreign jihadists onto thebattlefields of Syria. Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at the Sciences-Poinstitute in Paris, said Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb existed before theArab Spring as a "gangster-jihadist" organisation. It combined Muslim"holy war" with criminal activities and was severely repressed bydictators in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt that were swept away in a wave of popularuprisings. The new regimes have been struggling to come up with an alternativepolicy.
"For example, the release of Abou Iyadh was a bigmistake. He was not a prisoner of conscience but rather a long-timecollaborator of Al-Qaeda," said Filiu, author of "The New MiddleEast". Abou Iyadh, the suspected organiser of a deadly attack on the USembassy in Tunis and Afghanistan veteran, was pardoned and has become a leadingfigure in the rise of Muslim ultra-conservative Salafists in the country.Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki has admitted his government "didn’trealise how dangerous and violent these Salafists could be," and warned ofthe perils of arms trafficking in North Africa since the fall of Libya'sMohammed Gaddafi. The desert shared by Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Mali haslong been a haven of smugglers but the presence of hardline jihadists has addeda new dimension.
Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis have pledged to coordinate theirefforts to combat trafficking and terrorism, as the jihadists in North Africaadapt to the post-revolutionary realities of the region.
