North Africa: Leaders from Sahel Meet to discuss new Terrorism generation

Representatives from seven North African and Sahelian states convened in Algiers on Tuesday  the 16^th March to discuss the growing threat of al Qaeda’s North African affiliate in the region.

Government delegates from Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger assembled to formulate a cohesive strategy to fight the extremist group, which is generally held responsible for a variety of attacks and kidnappings throughout the region.

In Washington, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State P. J. Crowley called the effort “collective action against groups that seek to exploit territories of these countries and launch attacks against innocent civilians.”

The meeting is the first of its kind between these states, and after a full day of private discussions, officials seemed to reach a mutual understanding. “We have reached a full consensus to tackle terrorism in the region,” Abdelkader Messahel, Algeria’s Minister Delegate for African and Maghreb Affairs, told reporters.

According to Messahel, officials decided to re-convene in the Algerian capital next month to clarify specifics. “We will go for action and one step is a meeting between military and anti-terror specialists of the region in Algiers in April,” he said.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), whose leadership is based in southern Algeria, has claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings, attacks and kidnappings in the North African and Saharan region over the past few years.

AQIM was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (SGPC), an Algerian rebel group started by Hassan Hattab, a former Armed Islamic Group commander. The Armed Islamic Group was a main faction in Algeria’s bloody civil war that spanned most of the 1990s, when a coalition of Islamist insurgents challenged the central government’s rule after disputed elections.