The Jihadist Movement and Hirak in Algeria
the Islamic State ( IS ), through its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi , had welcomed the Hirak , while regretting that the people did not choose the path of jihad and that the tyrant [ editor ’ s note : Bouteflika ] had been replaced by another tyrant .
However , this unprecedented political protest in Algeria had raised fears about the possibility of a resurgence of Islamist terrorism , until then considered , particularly by the regime in place , as almost eradicated after a series of major military operations implemented from 2014 to 2018 , during which several hundred terrorists had been killed or captured . Moreover , a US report noted that in 2018 and the first half of 2019 , Algeria had not suffered any bomb attacks for the first time since 1992 ( Porter , 2019 ), and that AQIM had not conducted any major attacks in the country for several years . However , the redeployment of security services in the wake of Hirak raised fears of a resurgence of AQIM , given the examples of other terrorist organizations from a number of other countries during their Arab Spring between 2011 and 2012 , but after more than six months of existence , this was not the case .
We therefore argue that this Hirak does not constitute , at least in the short and medium term for AQIM , an organization that has been virtually eradicated in Algeria , or any other terrorist organization , an opportunity for resurgence in a context where , on the one hand , radical Islamism is neither a demand nor an alternative considered by the demonstrators and that , contrary to the events that occurred in Libya and Syria in 2011 and then in Egypt in 2013 , the choice of the Algerian authorities not to repress these demonstrations with violence avoids a radicalization of the movement .
Revolution and Jihadism : The Case of the Arab Spring
After being defeated in the late 1990s and early 2000s , the radical jihadist
movement had since taken advantage of Arab revolt movements during the Arab Spring of 2011 to establish or reestablish itself , as was the case in Egypt with the Al Gamaa al-Islamiya group in 1997 and in Libya with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group ( GICL ) in 1999 . In Syria , the radical Islamist movement only manifested itself between 1977 and 1982 , during an attempted revolt of the Muslim Brotherhood against the regime of Hafez al-Assad , a revolt that was repressed in blood , notably during the massacre of Hamah in February 1982 . In Tunisia , although a radical Islamist movement already existed , it was never able to challenge the regime .
However , after the Arab Spring of 2011 , these countries were directly affected by radical Islamism with the establishment and deployment of organizations linked to Al-Qaeda and / or EI . Moreover , in the 1980s and 1990s , radical Islamist movements justified their attacks and attacks by the fact that Arab regimes were authoritarian regimes . A former Tunisian jihadist explained his involvement in
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