Profile: Al-Qaeda in North Africa

Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb, to give its full name in English, has its roots in the bitter Algerian civil war of the early 1990s, but has since evolved to take on a more modern Islamist agenda. It emerged in early 2007, after a feared militant group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), aligned itself with Osama Bin Laden's international Reported leader Abdel Moussab network. Abdelwadoud is rarely seen Back in the 1990s, against a background of Islamist political groups testing their strength across North Africa, the military-backed authorities in Algeria at first permitted the Islamists to play a full part in the nation's political life. But then, when the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to sweep the board in a 1992 general election, they annulled the whole process and took power back. The political ferment immediately moved into violence. Armed Islamists mounted attacks across Algeria; the security forces fought back; and sometimes it was hard to tell which group had carried out which atrocity. Other states in the region - Tunisia and Morocco, Mauritania to the west and Libya to the east - also battled against Islamists. Most feared But the conflict in Algeria was particularly brutal, killing perhaps 150,000 people. It peaked in the 1990s, until an amnesty offer to Islamists in 1999 led to gradual improvements. Violence fell and the country's economy recovered during the early years of the 21st Century. However, the most feared of the militant organisations, the Armed Islamic Group or GIA, rejected the promised amnesty and continued a violent campaign to establish an Islamic state. By then it had split, with the most extreme faction calling itself the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) - a name which echoed an Islamist group in Morocco. The Arabic word "Salafist" means GSPC deputy leader Amari Saifi is fundamentalist, in the sense of going back to the original serving a life sentence texts of Islam.

In September 2006 the GSPC said it had joined forces with al-Qaeda, and in January 2007 it announced that it had changed its name to reflect its new allegiance. There has been much debate in intelligence circles about the significance of the move. Some officials have dismissed it as an act of desperation by a group on its last legs, seeking to attract new recruits by aligning itself with Osama bin Laden. Others consider it a far more worrying development, showing that al-Qaeda has succeeded in persuading North Africa's Islamic extremists to take a more global view. The news delighted al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who described it at the time as "a source of chagrin, frustration and sadness" for Algeria's authorities. Wave of attacks Shortly afterwards, seven bombs exploded in the eastern Kabylia region, killing six people, and in April 2007 at least 30 people were killed in bomb attacks on official buildings in Algiers. Al-Qaeda's North African wing said it had planted the bombs. More attacks followed: on buses carrying foreign oil workers; on American diplomats; on soldiers; and in September 2007, a suicide bomb attack in Batna, aimed at the motorcade of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The president was not injured, but 20 people were killed. Two days later, a car bomb killed more than 30 people at a coastguard barracks in the town of Dellys. In December, twin car bombs claimed by al-Qaeda in North Africa Attacks in August 2008 in Bouira killed at least 37 people in Algiers, including 17 UN staff. hit a barracks and a company bus The death toll continued to mount in 2008. Back-to-back attacks on 19 and 20 August killed dozens of people. The first was a suicide car bombing at a police college in Issers, east of Algiers, killing 48 people. A day later, two more car bombings struck in quick succession in Bouira, south-east of Algiers. The second explosion in Bouira killed 12 Algerian employees of the Canadian engineering firm SNCLavalin. The attacks continued into 2009, when suspected al-Qaeda militants in February killed nine security guards who were working for the state-owned gas and electricity distributor Sonelgaz at a camp near Jijel, east of Algiers. Today, Algerian Islamists represent the largest national grouping in al-Qaeda, according to Jim Carroll, author of How Did Al-Qaeda Emerge in North Africa? 'Years of hardship'

Algeria's prime minister has warned that the bombers want to take Algeria back to "the years of hardship". But other incidents across the Maghreb point to the group's possible regional ambitions. In January 2007, 12 people were shot dead by the security forces in Tunisia near the small town of Solimane, south of the capital, Tunis. The authorities initially described their adversaries as criminals but later admitted that the men were Islamic militants with connections to the GSPC. Meanwhile, in Morocco, security forces have clamped down on several militant cells - arresting, trying and jailing their leaders - after four incidents blamed on alQaeda-inspired groups in 2007. The security forces are said to be on the lookout for militants who are believed to be crossing into Morocco from Algeria.

This group trained in Algeria and have learned their techniques from Iraq as well as in Afghanistan Mohamed Ben-Madani Maghreb analyst

And of course the Madrid train bombs, which killed almost 200 people in 2004, were the work of a Moroccan gang. In December 2008, militants from al-Qaeda in North Africa abducted the United Nations special envoy, Robert Fowler, and his assistant, Louis Guay, near Niger's capital, Niamey. They were released in April 2009. The group also seized four European tourists who disappeared in January 2009 along the Mali-Niger border. Two were freed in April. The group threatened to kill one of the remaining pair - a Briton - unless a radical Islamic cleric convicted of terrorism in Jordan, Abu Qatada, was released from jail in the UK. And in June the British government said it believed the group's claims on an Islamist website that the death threat had been carried out against the British captive, Edwin Dyer. 'One-eyed' The group is thought to have between 600 and 800 fighters spread throughout Algeria and Europe. Its leader is thought to be Abou Mossab Abdelwadoud, a former university science student and infamous bomb-maker. He took over in 2004, though there are unconfirmed reports that he has since been toppled by internal rivals.

Another leading member is Mokhtar Belmokhtar, 36, known as the "one-eyed", a former soldier who followed the familiar route for radical young Muslims and went to fight in Afghanistan. He leads the Saharan faction of the group and has organised the importation of arms for the underground network from Niger and Mali. He is wanted in Algeria on terrorism charges. Two years ago, deputy GSPC leader Amari Saifi was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping 32 European tourists in 2003. Mokhtar Belmokhtar is known as the "one-eyed"

The former paratrooper was captured by Chadian rebels in mysterious circumstances and passed on to Libya before standing trial in Algeria.