"A lion's cub of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, valiant martyr Hamza Abu Aderrahman, drove a vehicle laden with at least 650 kilograms (1,430 pounds) of explosives against the ramparts of the apostates: the judicial police station in Thenia."
This was the statement by Al Qaeda in the Maghreb following a suicide attack on an Algerian police station in Thenia, 30 miles east of Algiers, which left four dead and 20 people wounded on 29 January 2008. This attack was just one of many which began in April 2007 and have resulted in hundreds dead and thousands wounded. What do these attacks mean for Algeria and the Maghreb region? Are Islamic extremists getting stronger? What is the future trajectory of the conflict? These are some of the questions which I will attempt to answer in this article.
The truth is that we took our eyes off the ball. We were confident that we had defeated Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) which now goes under the name of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQM). Indeed the obituary of this group has been written many times. In 2003, for instance, when the GSPC leader Ammar Saifi was captured in Chad and extradited to Algeria, various analysts wrote off the GSPC as no longer a credible threat to the Algerian government. The wave of recent bombings suggests that despite the capture and killing of their senior leadership, they have been able to replenish the core leadership structure.
In my view we had under-estimated the AQM despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that we need to take them seriously. We tended to forget that Algerian Islamists constitute the largest national grouping in Al Qaeda after Saudis and Yemenis. We tended to forget that 20 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq were Algerian. We forgot that Algerian Islamists were not only active in Algeria but also in Chad, Niger, Mauritania, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Afghanistan and Chechnya. Despite warnings from the group itself, we ignored the signs. Last year, they warned that theirs was not a national or regional vision, "It is important for us to spread the fragrance of jihad in every country and region until the fire ignites the fire under the feet of Jews, Christian and the apostates". We assumed that warnings such as these were merely empty rhetoric despite intelligence reports suggesting that not only did AQM have within their ranks battle-hardened Afghan war veterans but also a new generation of Islamists who earned their spurs in the Iraq war. We assumed that it was empty rhetoric despite growing evidence that they were acquiring heavy machine guns, mortars, vehicle mounted machine guns, satellite position equipment, surface-to-air missiles and chemical products.
The decision of the GSPC to align itself with Al Qaeda in September 2006 and to rename itself as the AQM in January 2007 holds ominous strategic significance not only for Algeria but for the entire Maghreb region. In February 2007, Tunisian Interior Minister, Rafiq Haj Kacem, announced that authorities had arrested 15 people linked to a Salafist terrorist cell that was planning to attack the country's British and American embassies. On March 11, 2007 Morocco experienced a terror attack - this time the bombing of an internet café in Casablanca. In April 2007, Morocco experienced yet another brush with terrorism when suicide bombers detonated their belts during a police raid.

Key to target selection for AQM's bombers is the apparatus and personnel of the state itself since they desire to discredit and undermine the Algerian state. Thus in April, 2007 the Prime Minister's office was the target of a bombing. On 6 September 2007, a suicide bomber attempted to assassinate Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the town of Batna, southeast of Algiers. Although he failed in his attempt, 22 people were killed and 107 were injured. The security personnel have also been repeatedly targets of AQM as well. In September 2007, 28 coast guard officers were killed and a further 30 were injured in a car bombing in the northern coastal town of Dellys, about 30 miles from Algiers. On 3 January and 29 January 2008, police stations were targeted in the towns of Naciria and Thenia respectively which resulted in police officers being killed and wounded. In June 2008, six soldiers were killed and a further four wounded at Cap Djinet, 50 kilometres east of Algiers when the vehicle they were travelling in was hit by a roadside bomb. The use of roadside bombs, a favourite of Iraqi insurgents against coalition forces, suggests once again the movement of battle-hardened Algerian veterans of the Iraq war into the Algerian battle theatre.
Other organs of state have also been targeted like the Constitutional Court building in the Ben Aknoun district in December 2007. In targeting such government buildings, the AQM display scant regard for human life. Thus several of the casualties of the Ben Aknoun were students riding in a school bus at the time.
In their efforts to undermine the Algerian state, AQM has shifted to the economy. Algeria is a major oil and gas producer for Europe and more recently for the United States. Algeria's oil reserves are 9.2 billion barrels and its gas reserves are 160 trillion cubic feet. In an effort to undermine the economic capacity of the Algerian state, AQM has targeted foreign workers who bring the necessary expertise to ensure that the state exploits its natural resources effectively. In September 2007 two French nationals and an Italian working for the Razel company were wounded in a roadside bomb attack. In June 2008, a French engineer and his chauffeur were killed in a bombing.
These attacks in Algeria have also proven most analysts including me wrong. We assumed that militant political Islam was the product of a closed political system where political elites were unresponsive to the needs of ordinary people. We assumed that if states were to open up the political process and look after the welfare of its citizens, it would undercut the appeal of the terrorists. We were wrong. The Algerian government did precisely that - it opened up the political process and sought to improve the welfare of its people. During the period 2005-2009, the government announced it would spend US $60 billion on infrastructure, housing and social projects. During 2006, the government announced a six-month reconciliation amnesty during which dozens of Islamists were freed from Algerian prisons. Once released from prison, many of these took up arms against the government. The December 2007 double car-bomb against the United Nations, for instance, was perpetrated by recently released Islamists. Under the circumstances, who can blame the Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem's bitterness when he stated, "The Algerian people stretched out a hand to them, and they respond with a terrorist act".

These terror attacks have exposed these groups as the enemy of democracy and freedom. No amount of dialogue and political compromise with them will help in ending their ruthless carnage in North Africa. Inspired by the utopian ideal of an Islamic State everywhere, these groups will settle for nothing less. But their Islamic State is not building on the Muslim ideals of tolerance, peace and democracy. Rather, theirs is a totalitarian fascist state where they are right and all need to pay obeisance to their commands. In the process they betray all Muslims and Islam itself. Such groups, it has been proven, cannot be negotiated with. They need to be resisted! This is something the Algerian government increasingly recognizes. Recently Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said that these terrorists have only "one choice: Turn themselves in or die".

*Professor Hussein Solomon lectures in the Department Of Political Sciences, University Of Pretoria, South Africa, where he is also Director of the Centre for International Political Studies