International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 49

Know What You Are Fighting
of organization. It included the objective of creating an Islamic state by restoring a
caliphate of which he proclaimed himself the supreme leader. It also had a code of
behavior and rules for selecting the “emir.” Functions and ministries were created,
with positions reserved for the incarcerated and exiled FIS leaders. The ministry of
war was entrusted to the future emir Djamel Zitouni. Jihad through attacks aimed at
unbelievers and their accomplices remained the vital objective of the GIA.
The Criminal Horde Takes Charge
The successors of Gousmi, Djamel Zitouni, Antar Zouabri known as Abou
Talha, and then Ouakli Rachid known as Abu Tourab, pushed the terrorism to a climax.
Apostatizing the people as a whole, its own acolytes and support networks, and then
the rest of the world, the sect was established by training its own clergy, recruited
from among its hardest members. Like the Taliban, it created a madrasa, a “religious”
school, in the mountains of Cheriaa near Bilda, to train the sons of living and dead
terrorists in “holy war.” It was also an indication for operational services. Massacre,
devastation, and a burnt earth policy became the watchwords of the sect.
Within the group, the spirit of neighborhood gangsterism was resurgent:
controlling territory, elimination of rivals, personal enrichment, and trials of strength
through constant criminal one-upmanship. It was all aimed at civilian populations, or
mujahedin accused of being traitors, which they saw as justifying their decapitation
and other atrocities. When the dream of paradise promised in the legal FIS meetings
waned, the state of nature 41 where everyone acts as they like became the horizon of
the sect. Rapes, assassination, theft: everything that offers immediate satisfaction is
allowed.
Massacres of Innocents: Legitimizing Criminal Acts
Drawing on the Islamist literature familiar to the fundamentalists and driven
by the concept of idjtihad that they found there, the GIA groups incriminated all of
those who prevented them from imposing their diktats and purifying the group to
make it an “authentic” sect. In doing so, they treated as Djazarists or Khaouaridj
(those who turned away from Islam after the death of the Prophet) those of their own
accomplices who became troublesome; they were accused of violating the tradition of
pious ancestors; outsiders to the group were treated as unbelievers or infidels. Here is
a selection of their pseudo-arguments taken from their tracts and magazines:
41
A term borrowed from Thomas Hobbes that reflects the situation in which terrorist groups lived,
where everyone has rights over every person and every thing.
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