Al-Qaida in North Africa: a terrorism franchise strikes far

DRAA BEN KHEDDA, Algeria (AP) — Deep in the Sahara Desert, along the remote southern borders of Algeria, lies an immense no man’s land where militants roam.

It is here that terrorists linked with al-Qaida traffic everything from weapons and drugs to illegal migrants. They have planted at least a half-dozen cells in Europe, according to French, Italian and Belgian intelligence. Last week, they announced on the Internet that they had killed a British hostage in Mali, and are still holding a Swiss hostage.

The al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaida is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaida’s brand name and some corporate know-how.

“The relationship with the al-Qaida mother company works like in a multinational,” says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks.