Echoes of past as Algeria probes Iraq bomb link

Algiers, Apr 25 (Reuters) Islamist fighters returning from Iraq pose a serious threat in Algeria, security sources say, recalling how mass bloodshed in the 1990s was fuelled by veterans of the war in Afghanistan.

The numbers involved are much smaller than the cohorts of ''Algerian Afghans'' who came home a decade or more ago and plunged into a civil war that killed some 200,000 Algerians but they have the potential to cause devastation.

Authorities investigating a triple suicide bombing that killed 33 in the capital Algiers on April 11 have arrested 80 Algerian Islamists who made recent visits to Iraq. Most are suspected of taking part in the insurgency against the government and US-led coalition forces there.

In recent months Algeria, a major oil and gas producer, has seen a major upsurge in violence from Islamist radicals who rebranded themselves late last year as ''al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb''.

This month's suicide bombings in Algiers, including one at the government headquarters, have revived fears of a descent back into the civil strife of the 1990s.

Western security sources use the term ''blowback'' to describe the danger that foreign fighters in Iraq, experienced and battle-hardened, may return to their own countries in the Arab world or even Europe and carry out attacks there.

''There is a big concern about the 'Algerian Iraqis'' capability of launching more suicide attacks,'' said Mounir Boudjemaa, security analyst and editor of Liberte newspaper.

''But unlike the 'Algerian Afghans' in the 1990s who were estimated at a minimum of 1,000, the Algerian Iraqis are not numerous,'' he added.

''The international context has also changed. The United States are no longer supporting the insurgents as they used to do (in Afghanistan in the 1980s) to counter the Soviets.'' AFGHAN VETERANS It was Algerian veterans of the Afghan war against Soviet occupation who, in early 1992, formed the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which went on to unleash a campaign of terror against a broad array of civilian targets.

Victims included secular opposition leaders, journalists, artists, academics, foreigners and thousands of villagers, many of them massacred by having their throats slit.

''In the 1990s, we used to register tens of killed persons per day. I am not including the 1996 and 1997 massacres when hundred of people were assassinated in one night. The situation has improved,'' a security source told Reuters, putting the current toll from Islamist violence at 50 to 60 per month.

He added that Algerian Iraqis who have left Iraq to come back home are estimated at a couple of dozen, and most are under security surveillance.

Naila Berrahal, a journalist specialising in security affairs said ''They are may be not as numerous as the Algerian Afghans, but they do have the needed financial resources to hire young holy warriors, including suicide bombers.'' To end the violence, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika offered in 2005 a partial amnesty for rebels, provided they were not involved in collective massacres, bombings in public places and rape. Under the programme, 2,200 Islamist fighters were freed from jail.

But Abdelmalek Droudkel, head of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, rejected the offer and appears bent on raising the militants' profile through increasingly ambitious attacks.

''Droudkel is doing his best to hire those who returned from Iraq, but also those who want to join Iraq. His organisation has enough financial means to trap young, naive Islamists,'' Liberte editor Boudjemaa said.

Security sources admit they do not know the scale of recruitment.

One told Reuters, ''One frightening question remains: how many suicide bombers Droudkel has already hired.'' Reuters RS GC2052