Flag used by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the North African branch of Al-Qaeda, has claimed credit for a roadside bomb attack that killed a Russian engineer last Saturday.
"Mujahedeen (Islamic warriors) using a high intensity bomb targeted the convoy of Russian infidels working for the Russian company Stroytransgaz," according to the statement signed by the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Maghreb..."We dedicate this modest conquest to our Muslim brothers in Chechnya ... victims of the criminal (Russian President Vladimir) Putin."
Three Algerians who were in the same minibus with the foreigners also died in the bombing, and four Britons, a Canadian, and two Lebanese nationals were wounded. This is the first successful attack on foreign workers in Algeria since December.
While there has been a lot of talk lately about a new Cold War brewing between the U.S. and Russia, it is important to remember who is the real enemy of the civilized world - the international jihadist movement. In the last decade, Russian citizens have frequently been targeted by jihadists, but today Chechnya is more stable than it has been at any time since 1994. The successful counterinsurgency in Chechnya should give Americans hope that terrorists can be defeated, and that populations taken hostage by terrorism can eventually be turned against their captors.
Click on this link to see the Kavkaz Center web page featuring a message from the GSPC praising the late Shamil Basayev, mastermind of the Beslan school massacre.
Click on the extended post to read the full article from AFX/RigZone.
Map of oil and gas production fields in Algeria
Al-Qaeda Claims Deadly Attack on Russians in Algeria
AFX News Limited 3/5/2007
Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa claimed responsibility for a attack on Russian gas workers in Algeria, in an internet message, saying it was to avenge Russia's actions in Chechnya.
"Mujahedeen (Islamic warriors) using a high intensity bomb targeted the convoy of Russian infidels working for the Russian company Stroytransgaz," according to the statement signed by the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Maghreb.
A Russian engineer and three Algerians were killed and five other people wounded in the bomb attack on their bus on Saturday at Hayoun, near Ain Defla in southern Algeria.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) has, since last September, taken on the name of Osama bin Laden's terror network for North Africa.
"We dedicate this modest conquest to our Muslim brothers in Chechnya ... victims of the criminal (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," it said in the statement posted on an Islamist site often used by Al-Qaeda.
The bus was carrying employees of the Russian firm, who were laying gas mains between Ain Defla, in the region of Medea, and Tiaret, 340 kilometers southwest of the capital, the Algerian newspaper El-Khabar reported.
The attack was the second claimed by the GSPC in recent months against foreigners based in Algeria, long troubled by Islamic extremist violence.
Last December one person was killed and nine injured in an attack on a bus carrying staff of the Brown and Root Condor (BRC) company, a subsidiary of the Algerian Sonatrach oil company and of US construction firm Halliburton.
The Algerian driver died, and a US citizen, four Britons, a Canadian, two Lebanese and an Algerian were among the injured.
The GSPC, a small armed group formed by dissidents of the Islamic Armed Group, is the only remaining group from the radical movements that waged an insurgency against the secular Algerian state from 1992.
Comments
Charles,
I quote "While there has been a lot of talk lately about a new Cold War brewing between the U.S. and Russia, it is important to remember who is the real enemy of the civilized world - the international jihadist movement..."
I'm sorry, but I must disagree.
I believe the jihadists are simply taking advantage of politics between Russia and the US. Specifically, the hypocrisy America is thrusting in its market based, Darwinian, shot in the dark foreign policy. I personally feel that Beslan would never had happened had Aslan Maskhadov (his side kicks did Beslan) not been entertained in Washington DC by US Senators, Congressmen and those idiots at the U.S. State Department. Beslan school children died because America had its secret agendas – encircling Russia, nibbling at Russia like chickens in a chicken coop picking at the weak. After all, according to America, energy is fungible; it belongs to the market, not to the people that are standing on it. Those Russians are standing on oil and gas that belongs to the market according to the US. And by the way, it must only be traded using US currency, according to US national interests.
Anyway…
The US claims it wants democracy all over the world, yet 80% of the Venezuelan people voted for Chavez, and the US can’t handle it. Putin gave the Chechens the right to a referendum on whether to stay in the Russia Federation, and the majority voted in favor of staying with Russia, despite US “Yankee Know how” & NGO money…in this respect, in regards to the Bush failed internship, what America is doing to Iraq, they tried in Chechnya. Oh and Bulgaria, most people voted in the referendum against joining NATO, but the Bulgarian gov is joining anyway… so much for democracy… And how’s the colored revolution in Ukraine? How’s the economy in Georgia? Ya think a NATO radar station will feed Georgians? Maybe neocons think so… what a waste… and jihadists will take advantage of this silly childish expansion of the US & NATO… if it goes much longer…
I don’t want to get side tracked here but my point is that America is trying to control the world because she’s running out of resources, running out of places to expand its monetary system that keeps the subsidies going to America.
The jihadists are strong because America is greedy, because America wants everyone’s resources and wants a free ride. The jihadists are doing well because the currents created by US double standards. Had America respected Russia and not expanded NATO, 9/11 would never have happened because the jihadists would not have seen America as a threat… Had the US taken the peace dividend after the USSR collapsed and spent it on keeping jobs in America and lowing its energy consumption, eliminating it's debt, the world would be far better today.
Most of today's problems and the hate inside of the jihadists was created by some "bright idea" by the US in the past... Today we have George W. Bush, a man that never went to war personaly, his lack of expereince and his 100% track record of failure will cost America for 50 years. Enron methedolgies have now been expanded to US foreign policy.
God help us.
Posted by: Luther G. Quick | March 7, 2007 10:24 AM
It should be the highest priority of US military intelligence and the international studies community (which is less biased than the mil) to get to the bottom of who and what is Kavkaztsentr. If they do, they will undoubtedly discover who America's greatest enemy really is, and who seeks to pit Russia and the USA against each other, thus fulfulling a fascist dream.
Posted by: Lois DuPey | March 7, 2007 1:13 PM
Hello Lois DuPey,
Nice idea... But Russia has it under control. Well, mostly under control.
You see kavkazcenter must be approved by the English government. With the shenanigans where Vanessa Redgrave and Akhmed Zakayev...
Akhmed Zakayev is protected by the English gov and the man is an admitted terrorist. I might be wrong, but if my memory serves me correctly, either he was part of that mid 1990's attach where these Chechens stormed into a hospital and took 1000 woman and children hostage or he planned it...
As far as I'm concerned, the West supports these terrorists. Imagine if Putin had dinner and a photo opp with Bin Laden.
So why is it that America & England dines with people like Aslan Maskhadov and Akhmed Zakayev ?
Why is that when American woman and children die in the collapsing World Trade Center towers, America calls this "a shock", yet when Russian school children in Beslan died from Chechen terrorist with Western support they come out with Borat style lingo? or pity?
It's not hard to believe kavkazcenter is supported by the West... there are many NGO's in Russia or Ukraine and Belarus there just to assist the US /EU in it's hegemony.
All this is silly, it's about the economics. We are all fighting over resource and I firmly believe the US has as much chance in controlling the Middle East or Chechnya as England had in controlling her 13 colonies.
Posted by: Luther G. Quick | March 7, 2007 5:12 PM
Luther, you brought up a good point.
Namely, the jihadist radicals in Chechnya are very likely supported by UK, and maybe USA. I’m not an avid supporter of conspiracy theories, but I cannot rule such possibility out, considering the past (Brits helping Turks in Russo-Turkish war, CIA aiding Taliban and training Bin Laden to fight Russians, etc.)
And Brits, facing themselves this growing threat of Islamic fascism, after the bus and subway bombings, continue to harbor known terrorists just because their activities are aimed at Russia. Unbelievable, yet true. Much to the glee of the “real enemy of the civilized world”.
All’s I can say is you reap what you sow.
Posted by: Al Goroh | March 10, 2007 6:03 AM
Al,
US supporting Chechens is not a conspiracy, it was simply "convenient".
The US is one big fat Darwinian accident.
I am a republican, and for that I believe in the free market. I believe in low taxes, the individual, freedom, and the right to keep what you have (Russian oil belongs to Russia - get it America?) and produce (- fair tax). For this reason my wife and I see Russia and Belarus as the place for growing prosperity. If you were a modest NEOCON and you believed that the entrepreneur should keep what he makes, then you would love Russia, Belarus & most of the CIS. Russia is not a nation of Darwinian accidents, it's not a nation of convenient and endless consumerism based on debt. Russia and her closest allies are going to be America's worst nightmare when it comes to competition.
If you could take Ronald Reagan's body to Moscow and woke him out of his death sleep, he would swear he was in heaven.
To this end, there are no conspiracies, sure it's wrong to give NGO money to Chechnya, but America did it, against their fundamental principals, and they supported the terrorists, because it was "convenient".
America is scared sh!tless because Russia is becoming better at capitalism than Americans ever dreamed of.
Most Americas never "believed" in black slavery or taking away land from the Mexicans or Americans Indians, but it was "convenient". They knew it was wrong, they felt it in their guts, as they did about the "Saddam did 9/11" fairy tale, but it was "convenient". Americans aren't stupid, they just want more plasma TV's and more SUV's... it's not a conspiracy it's just "convenience"... Most Germans never believed Jews were the fault of pre WW2 economic problems in Germany, but it was "convenient".
Most Americans will bitch about jobs leaving, they will bitch about massive US debt that will kill our beloved America, but it's friggen "convenient" right now, this second, screw the consequences...
Breaking Russia apart, suckering Yeltsin into selling Russia's soul, sure it was wrong, and Americans know it, but it's "convenient".
Beslan school children dieing was terrible, but damn "convenient" for the US and the EU.
America will do what is best for her short term gain, and screw accountability, screw international laws, screw the Geneva convention, screw human rights, and most important - screw America's future generations - right up their butts - we want our Wal-Mart stuff...
Saddam didn't do 9/11 and Saddam didn't have WMD but it was damn "convenient".
Some people come up with conspiracies that Bush & Cheney and Dr Rice knew that Iraq would brake into a civil war, I say BS. America does nothing planned, all of it is a FREE MARKET. It's foreign policy, to it's investments, corp governance (Enron / Tyco / WorldCom / Author Anderson / Lucent / etc...), to it's future, it is all based on a lottery, one big ass crap game.
Like I said, free markets are great for the general economy but not in foreign policy or national security or protecting natural resources (oil / gas reserves). There are no conspiracies for this word gives credence that Bush or US foreign policy has some sort of planning or structure or a BIG BRAIN.
Sorry, no planning in America, just chaos... thinking is illegal in the West, going with the wind, with the TRENDS and doing what the neighbor is doing, that what it's all about.
...Sorry about the long responce... just my view...
Posted by: Luther G. Quick | March 10, 2007 7:35 PM
In a nut-shell most of the countries are under terrorist attacks, 99.9% of the terrorists are MUSLIMS and its a fact that muslims cant be trusted because there has been enough evidence of their contribution in terrorism.
Posted by: Sunil | November 13, 2007 9:34 PM