Page 11 - Aruba Today
P. 11
WORLD NEWS A11
Tuesday 15 March 2016
Al-Qaida focuses attention on soft targets in West Africa
PAUL SCHEMM organizations around the
world and turned to civilian
Associated Press targets linked to its enemies
— principally the French.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia “They’ve realized how easy
it is and how much fear you
(AP) — The attack on an can spread by doing this,”
said Sean Smith, the Africa
Ivory Coast beach resort analyst at Verisk-Maplec-
roft Risk Consultancy. “You
by an al-Qaida affiliate is can spread much more
fear by attacking capital
the latest sign it is shifting its cities and tourist complex-
es than the Malian army.”
focus to soft targets associ- The shift comes as AQIM
is under unprecedented
ated with foreigners in an pressure from the French-
led Operation Barkhane, a
effort to destabilize econo- wide ranging campaign in
the Sahara that has killed
mies and gain the group a number of jihadi com-
manders.
credibility among jihadis in According to Andrew
Lebovich, an expert on
its rivalry with the so-called the group, one of its com-
manders said in a recent
Islamic State group. interview that all political
and security partners of
The three gunmen who France and the West were
now considered valid tar-
burst into the Grand-Bas- gets.
\The violence at the ho-
sam beach resort and tels also comes as one of
the al-Qaida’s most feared
killed 18 people were part commanders, Moktar Bel-
moktar, the architect of a
of al-Qaida in the Islamic 2013 attack on an Algerian
gas plant, has rejoined the
Maghreb, a group that group with his followers and
apparently expanded its
grew out of the Algerian capabilities dramatically.
“It is a way of showing that
civil war in the 1990s and they can and will strike far Bullet holes are seen on a wall, center, outside of the Nouvelle Paillote hotel, one of the three
away from the areas that hotels involved in an attack at Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast, Monday, March 14, 2016. Survivors of
used to restrict itself to op- had previously been re- the first attack by Islamic extremists in Ivory Coast described scenes of confusion and fear as the
garded as security threats, jihadists gunned down defenseless civilians at a beachfront resort area.
erations deep in the desert, while still maintaining oper-
ations in northern Mali and (AP Photo/Christin Roby)
hundreds of miles away. central Mali in particular,”
Lebovich said.
In recent months, however, The merger of al-Qaida
splinters in this region also
it has carried out devastat- comes as the group is un-
der increasing pressure
ing attacks against luxury from the dramatic success
of the Islamic State, which
hotels frequented by for- has carried out high-profile
attacks in Libya and Tunisia
eigners: first in Mali in No- and is in danger of peeling
away al-Qaida followers.
vember, then in Burkina
Faso in January,
and now even farther
south in an Ivorian resort
popular with tourists and lo-
cals alike.
“They are essentially shift-
ing their strategy from op-
erating in northern Mali and
southern Algeria and parts
of Libya to much more
commercially relevant
areas,” said Robert Bes-
seling, director of the Exx
Africa risk advisory group.
“Therefore it undermines
the whole region’s econo-
my and the business con-
fidence surrounding these
economies.”
Al-Qaida’s North Africa
branch was once known
for striking military posts in
Algeria and neighboring
countries, but such attacks
were often difficult and
made little impact interna-
tionally.
The group has now taken its
cue from other, more brutal
