International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 43

Know What You Are Fighting
At the turn of the decade between the 1970s and 1980s, Algeria underwent
massive protests by Islamists who imitated the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups
in Egypt and Syria, but moreover, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood of Algeria
began to organize in a paramilitary way. Contingents of young Islamists left to train
for “armed struggle,” especially in Afghanistan and Syria. Networks brought future
combatants through Nice and Lille. Under cover of a “small pilgrimage” (Omra)
Islamists passed from Saudi Arabia to Peshawar, where they were welcomed by
international Islamist organizations. Are these indications still current, for the support
networks of future terrorists? Certainly precious information for Western antiterrorism
experts, who should pay more attention to the history of terrorism in the world.
A former fighter in the war of independence, member of the National Liberation
Front and the Front of Socialist Forces, Mustapha Bouyali formed militias in the early
1980s aimed at “fighting evil and promoting good.” His incendiary sermons at the
El Achour mosque in Algiers brought together fanatics who would later participate,
at every level, in the acts of violence of the FIS and GIA. 26 Desiring to establish the
Islamic state by jihad, Bouyali went into hiding and started his guerilla against the
government, which he accused of betraying the revolution and forgetting Islam, in the
name of which the country had been liberated. Eliminated in 1987, the key events of
his trajectory are as follows:
-November 1982: assassination of a gendarme checking identification at an
intersection in Ben Aknoun, Algiers.
-August 21, 1985: theft of the funds of a national company.
-August 27, 1985: attack on the Soumaâ police academy, killing one police
officer; and theft of a quantity of weapons.
Brought before the State Security Court in 1985, his accomplices revealed
other deadly plans thwarted by the security services: assassination of political figures,
bombing of the Hotel Aurassi and the Algiers airport, among others.
Islamic Salvation Front and Terrorism: Preparation, Threats, Attacks
The abundant writing 27 on the creation of this party and its legalization
allows us to bypass its beginnings. I will discuss the composition of the FIS in the
following section, as well as its declared and secret objectives, and finally, its role
27
The FIS has been the subject of several books by Algerians and foreigners, all of which are easily
available.
28
An allusion to their participation in elections.
29
Two letters written in detention and published in the press thanks to his lawyer and his brother.
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