A 300-page report, due to be published in book form early next year, is expected to take the lid off what is at the heart of the new post 9/11 US-Algerian relationship. The report will bring together a wide range of evidence to show that the 'heart' of this new alliance was (and still is) a scheme to create a new front in the global 'war in terror' that would envelop much of the previously 'terrorist-free' Sahara and Sahel.
The report, in its final compilation stage, draws on a vast range of evidence, culled over the last 2-3 years from members of the military and security-intelligence services in Algeria, elsewhere in North Africa, Europe and the US; hundreds, if not thousands, of media reports and analyses; interviews and meetings with former hostages, diplomats, security 'experts', politicians, 'terrorists', narco-traffickers, local Saharan residents and a number of 'private investigators'.
The report's investigations and findings are in two parts. One focuses on the nature of the involvement and collusion between Algerian and US agencies in various hostage-taking attempts. These include but are not limited to:
the capture of 32 European hostages in the Algerian Sahara in 2003, ostensibly by GSPC 'terrorists';
the movement of these hostages and their captors to Mali prior to their release;
the subsequent activities of these 'terrorists' and their supposed 'emir', Abderrezak Lamari - a.k.a Amari Saifi but generally known as El Para after his service as a parachutist in the Algerian army - in Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad, where many of them allegedly met their fate at the hands of Chadian forces;
the fabrication of intelligence and media reports during this period;
the management of the substantial trans-Saharan trafficking business (cigarettes, drugs, arms, vehicles and people)
and a number of further incidents in 2004 and 2005 associated with and following the US's launch of its Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI).
The second part of the report explores the motives behind this complicity, its outcomes to date, and its implications for the peoples and countries of the region and Africa as a whole.
The report's overall conclusions raise a number of extremely difficult questions for both the Algerian government, especially elements within its military and intelligence services, and the Bush Administration, which could have major political implications, both internally in both countries and in terms of their respective international relations.
The report also links the furtherance of the 'war on terror' into the Sahara-Sahel to US oil interests - a factor which does no favours to international, and especially US, oil companies operating in or planning to move into the region. It has also increased the political risk surrounding a number of Saharan projects, especially those, such as the Nigerian-Algerian Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline project (see SF0405/6.0.), which touch on the Sahel.
A couple of years ago, the pipeline traversed 'friendly territory' throughout almost the entirety of its proposed route. Now, most of that route is in 'hostile territory', a fact which will translate into far higher security costs if and when the pipeline moves from the drawing board to the desert's sands, and for which the US and Algerian governments, with some help from the Niger authorities, can be held responsible.
In fact, the entire economic feasibility of the project must now be in even greater doubt. The report lays out an array of evidence to demonstrate that the USA's military intervention in this region, aided and abetted by Algerian military-intelligence forces, was not only ill-conceived, but has been the catalyst behind much of the Saharan-Sahel region's increased political destabilisation and insecurity (see SF0405/5.0.).
There is also evidence that the Bush Administration's PSI has inflamed passions in parts of Nigeria's Muslim north, which threatens to add an unwelcome new dimension to the already critically sensitive 'oil situation' in Nigeria. The report also contains evidence to show that US intelligence agencies were warned of, but ignored, the likely outcomes and implications of this sort of intervention as long as three years ago.
This article is taken from the first issue of Menas Associates' Sahara Focus quarterly publication, which will cover all the major issues affecting the region from Mauritania to Sudan. Contact info@menas.co.uk for further details.
© Menas Associates 2005
