UNCLASSIFIED JIEDDO J2 OSAAC 
Product Serial: 09102009­022 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

(U) Al‐Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: Current IED 
Patterns in North Africa 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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JIEDDO J2 Open Source Augmentation and Analysis Cell (OSAAC)

Author: Marisa Urgo, EUCOM Analyst

Photo Credit:

Screen capture, extracted from “Guerre des bombes et les mines” (2008)

http://www.archive.org/details/EL-FAJER-CENTER-1

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(U) Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM): IEDs and a New Strategy of Insurgency

(U) Key Findings

• Approximately 5 percent of all AQIM IED attacks since 2007 were either Suicide
Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Devices (SVBIED) or Person-borne Improvised
Explosive Devices (PBIED). They account for the majority of mass-casualty attacks in
Algeria.

• Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is a centralized network that includes political and
consultative, or shura, and paramilitary cells. AQIM’s Algeria-based operational cells
are organized into approximately nine zones, subdivided into brigades, with the majority
of IEDs and PBIED attacks occurring in the northern zones.

• According to the World Incidents Tracking System (WITS), there were 630 terrorist
incidents in Algeria since 2004. Of those incidents, 294 included IEDs, 47 percent of the
total attacks. Of the 294, sixteen included suicides.

(U) Summary

(U) AQIM’s ever-improving tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in IED manufacture and
deployment bares itself out in the group’s effective deployment of IEDs in the service of a
greater regional strategy. However, even as AQIM advances its strategy throughout North
Africa and the Sahel, IED incidents remain rare outside of Algeria, because Algeria is a
sanctuary and base for paramilitary training and logistical support.

(U) Al-Qaeda’s Pillar in North Africa

(U) Based in northern Algeria, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is al-Qaeda’s gateway
into North Africa and the countries of the Sahara Desert, collectively known as the Sahel. AQIM
maintains strong historical continuity with Algeria’s political and social history and the emergent
global Salafist-Jihadist movement, typified by al-Qaeda. Though based in northern Algeria, its
global reach and deep leadership bench mean AQIM remains a major player in the global jihad
and a significant manufacturer and user of IEDs throughout North Africa and the Sahel.

(U) AQIM’s operational profile offers one of the best examples of a Salafist-Jihadist
organization self-correcting previous strategic catastrophes. In the 1990s, AQIM’s progenitor
the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) fought Algerian government forces and other rival Islamist
groups. By 1995 it had nearly brought down the Algerian government, garnering respect and
financial support from other Salafist-Jihadist leaders, like Usama bin Laden, who saw the GIA’s
fight as the most promising opportunity to put Salafist-Jihadist ideas into political action.
However, leadership changes initiated GIA’s devolution into indiscriminate mass murderers,
terrorizing innocent civilians, and turning the Salafist-Jihadist cause into a bloodbath. Salafist-

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Jihadists across the globe withdrew their support and disowned GIA’s actions in 1996. Many of
its senior members left to form the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in 1999.
AQIM emerged out of the GSPC following ideological disputes among senior members with
some leaders publically announcing allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2006.

(U) AQIM is a centralized network that includes political and consultative, or shura, and
paramilitary cells. AQIM maintains a north-south command, with senior leadership operating
within the populated areas in Algeria’s north, while directing strategic operations in the southern
desert south into Mali, Niger, and Mauritania, effectively securing “control of a triangle of
uninhabited territory in the rear of its northern operations, where the borders of Algeria, Mali,
and Mauritania meet.” 1 It organizes its operational cells into approximately nine zones,
subdivided into brigades, with the majority of attacks occurring in zones 2 and 5 in the north. 2
Zone 9 includes most of southern Algeria and is the operational center for AQIM activities in
Niger, Mali, and Mauritania. Zone commanders, known as emirs, are the most widely known
and reported AQIM members in the local and regional open source media. Recent al-Qaeda
documents, some noted below, suggest AQIM’s leadership takes pains to maintain ideological
discipline from its zone commanders. 3 Ongoing reports of internal leadership changes, hints at a
top down command structure that favors loyalty and discipline. Taken as a whole, this suggests
that AQIM leadership is operating from a more disciplined paramilitary doctrine.

(U) The lessons of GIA’s diminution are integrated into AQIM’s operational profile and
targeting. The majority of AQIM’s targets are government, military, and security forces. It uses
IEDs in complex attacks such as the numerous ambushes of military convoys; however, as noted
above, the intended targets are intelligence, security, and foreign institutions.

(U) AQIM could possibly pursue an expansionist strategy into the Sahel countries for several
reasons:

(U) AQIM leads armed attacks in neighboring countries in order to project an image of
strength and broad, regional support.

(U) By attacking security operations in neighboring countries, AQIM follows a tactic

described in Abu Bakr al-Naji’s The Management of Savagery, compelling poorly trained
and under-funded regional security forces to redirect resources into difficult security
operations. In so doing, it further weakens those governments, giving al-Qaeda an
opportunity to seize territory, and eventually, an entire country.

(U) AQIM’s targeted use of IEDs, PBIEDs, and SVBIEDs inside Algeria, may come
from al-Naji’s idea of “vexation and exhaustion,” a strategic means of exposing the
systemic security and “moral” weaknesses of autocratic regimes. IEDs become force
multipliers; deploying SVBIEDs to target military training compounds effectively
exhaust Algerian security capabilities and expose their vulnerabilities to the general
public.

(U) In a tactic described in Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s Call to Global Islamic Resistance 4 ,
AQIM scatters its personnel into neighboring countries as a means of securing sources

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of funding, recruitment, and weapons such as drug and supply smuggling routes. It
also scatters individuals, cells and training facilities into empty regions of the Sahara. In
so doing, AQIM secures its personnel and physical assets, making it difficult for Algerian
security forces to infiltrate or otherwise target the group en masse.

(U) By operating among the Sahelian tribes in Mali and Mauritania, AQIM seeks to
build alliances and recruit members from across the socio-economic and ethnic
spectrum as a means of regionalizing their organization.

(U) Saudi Arabia partially exposed al-Qaeda’s expansionist strategy for the Sahel in June 2008
when Saudi officials broke up a large-scale al-Qaeda operation plotting to attack key
infrastructure nodes in Saudi Arabia, identifying 40 Mauritanians as operational commanders.
Such a large-scale operation, if successful, would help build a leadership cadre for the Sahel.
New recruits and new sources of funding would arise and would quickly escalate militant
activity in the region. 5

(U) AQIM’s Use of IEDs

(U) According to the World Incidents Tracking System (WITS), there were 630 terrorist
incidents in Algeria since 2004. Of those incidents, 294 included IEDs (47 percent of the total),
and of those, 16 included suicides. Since GSPC’s integration into al-Qaeda’s global movement,
AQIM’s deployment of IEDs has significantly increased. For instance, in 2005 IEDs accounted
for a third of all terrorist attacks. In 2006, it was 38 percent. By 2008, it was close to 70 percent.
AQIM has transitioned to an IED-based insurgency, not unlike Iraq.

(U) One reason for AQIM’s transition to an IED-based insurgency could be the transfer of al-
Qaeda TTPs from Iraq. According to the Sinjar records, a collection of “nearly 700 records of
foreign nationals that entered Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007,” approximately 7.2
percent of the foreign fighters represented were from Algeria. 6 Individuals who once fought
with al-Qaeda in Iraq could return home to fill AQIM’s ranks, in a phenomenon known as
“spillover.” Such battle-hardened men represent a new generation of AQIM fighters and leaders.

(U) By integrating into al-Qaeda’s broader movement, AQIM helps facilitate continuous
exchange of technical expertise and broadens access to TTPs in all areas of operations, including
IED manufacturing and deployment. It gives returning fighters a sense of continuity from one
regional operation to another, thus strengthening the ties between all the affiliates. By applying
these TTPs in Algeria and the rest of the Maghreb 7 and Sahel, they can then exchange new ideas
with the rest of the movement, particularly through training and indoctrination.

(U) AQIM’s Strategic Use of PBIED and SVBIEDs

(U) Person-borne Improvised Explosive Devices account for less than ten incidents per year
since 2007, the first year AQIM employed the use of PBIEDs. AQIM employs them for
strategic, high profile attacks against foreign and federal government sites in Algiers. However,
since 2007, they employ PBIEDs most frequently against security targets such as police or

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military buildings. Five of the 9 PBIEDs since January 2008 targeted police, paramilitary or
military buildings.

(U) Approximately 5 percent of all AQIM IED attacks were PBIEDs and SVBIEDs, a total of 16
since 2007. However, they accounted for all the mass-casualty attacks (of ten or more fatalities)
in Algeria. In 2007, PBIED and SVBIED attacks accounted for 78 percent of all IED-related
fatalities. In 2008, PBIED and SVBIED attacks accounted for 66 percent of all IED-related
deaths. In the first half of 2009, PBIED and SVBIED attacks accounted for forty percent of all
IED related fatalities. The reasons for the decline are unclear from open source. However,
several factors are possibly at work, including improved counterterrorism efforts from regional
governments and the effects of a recent amnesty program that has inspired some key members of
the group to turn themselves in and share information with the Algerian government. 8

(U) Most PBIED attacks took place in populated areas, such as regional capitals. Security
forces, particularly military barracks, training schools, and operational headquarters, dominate
the target list, accounting for 11 out of 16 attacks. Foreigners and foreign institutions like the
United Nations were targeted 3 times out of 16, and federal government offices, twice. Some of
the attacks were simultaneous, like the 11 December 2007 simultaneous attack on the United
Nation's headquarters and the federal court in Algiers, thus integrating two different categories.

(U) AQIM's deployment of PBIEDs and SVBIEDs is selective for several possible reasons.
First, AQIM commanders want to mitigate civilian casualties. Also, selecting military and
security forces plays into the widespread skepticism, distrust and apathy toward security
elements common within the region’s autocratic regimes. Large-scale attacks against security
forces inspire doubt about the regime’s ability to counteract AQIM operation. Second, targets
are in populated areas. PBIEDs and SVBIEDs help mitigate civilian deaths by acting as
precision delivery devices. Third, AQIM targets foreigners working on regional infrastructure
projects. It embarrasses the regime and inspires skepticism in the regime's ability to protect its
foreign workers. It also drives up costs for international companies by forcing them to hire more
private security and pay higher wages and insurance premiums, increasing costs, and reducing
benefits of investing in Algeria.

(U) Rather than rely on Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s tactic of targeting civilians to instill fear and
compel support from the local populace, AQIM employed the profound psychological tactic of
perpetrating two of their three large-scale attacks in the capital, Algiers, on the 11th day of the
month. 9 These are the only two attacks occurring in Algiers, creating a strong anticipatory
gloom around the 11th of every month without having to kill large numbers of innocent civilians.
Numerous small-scale incidents continue to occur on or around the 11th day of each month.

(U) AQIM’s Footprint in the Maghreb and the Sahel

(U) International media regularly reports on AQIM’s creeping expansion into surrounding
countries; however, AQIM’s incident profile in the region is less pronounced than open source
reporting suggests. There are few terrorist incidents in the Sahel and neighboring North African
countries compared to Algeria, and even fewer IED incidents, contradicting the open source
opinion that the group is successfully expanding its terrorist operations into other regions.

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Rather, its expansion into neighboring countries represents a deliberate effort to introduce
AQIM’s interpretation of Islam into the region, to generate sympathy and recruits for the global
Salafist-Jihadist movement, and to give AQIM’s organization a deeper regional identity outside
of its Algerian roots.

(U) Mali

(U) Of the 18 terrorist incidents in Mali since 2004, the majority of them are associated with the
Tuareg tribal insurgency. AQIM's footprint remains small, but it has been growing since the
beginning of 2009.

(U) Mauritania

(U) AQIM is the dominant terrorist actor in Mauritania, accounting for at least 7 of the 11
identified incidents. The August 8, 2009 attack on the French embassy in Nouakchott is the first
IED and the first PBIED used in the country. 10 AQIM publically claimed responsibility for the
attack on August 19, 2009. 11

(U) Morocco

(U) Morocco has seen six terrorist incidents since 2004, four PBIED incidents, one other IED
incident, and an armed assault targeting security forces. AQIM is the prime suspect in all six;
however, they have never been directly linked to any of them. AQIM has been unsuccessful in
Morocco since 2007, with no terrorist incidents reported in 2008 and through June 2009.
Morocco has an indigenous Salafist-Jihadist movement, Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group,
known by its French acronym, GICM. AQIM could recruit from this base of like-minded
individuals, exploiting pre-established funding, logistics, and recruitment networks in Morocco
and the EU.

(U) Niger

(U) Of the 28 terrorist attacks in Niger since 2004, 23 (or 82 percent) are blamed on the local
insurgency group, the Niger People's Movement for Justice (MNJ). The MNJ is a tribal-based
insurgency in Niger's north; it dominates the region's politics and economics. AQIM's limited
operations in Niger are in MNJ's territory, according to most open source reporting. Thus,
AQIM must compete for "hearts and minds" within an ongoing ethno-political conflict that has
little to do with al-Qaeda's global movement. There is circumstantial evidence that AQIM and
MNJ (or splinter groups) provide some logistical support, including the December 2008
kidnapping of two Canadian diplomats. However, MNJ officials deny any coordination with
AQIM, and there is little substantial evidence in open source linking them together.

(U) Libya, Western Sahara, and Tunisia

(U) Libya and Western Sahara have experienced one terrorist attack each since 2004, according
to WITS data. Of the terrorist attacks identified since 2004, only the December 2006 attack has
been attributed to AQIM. Tunisia has seen two terrorist attacks between 2004 and June 2009,

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according to WITS data, and only one, the February 2008 kidnapping, is definitively linked to
AQIM.

(U) Conclusion

(U) Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is al-Qaeda’s gateway into North Africa and the
Sahel region. Algeria and the entire Maghreb and Sahel are a proving ground for “better jihad,”
one which avoids the catastrophic mistakes of the GIA. AQIM’s key to waging a more effective
regional insurgency is its effective, targeted use of IEDs, PBIEDs, and SVBIEDs against tourists,
foreign workers, and regional security forces. Through AQIM’s strategic and operational
discipline and deepening social networks in the Maghreb and Sahel, al-Qaeda raises money and
recruits, broadening its sources of funding and improving the bench of future leaders. However,
AQIM maintains only a tenuous hold on its operational regions outside of Algeria. Further
research should target AQIM’s efforts to expand into the Maghreb and the Sahel, and explore the
following questions:

• What is the extent of al-Qaeda’s core influence within AQIM? How does the influence
show up in its doctrine? Has that influence extended to IED manufacturing and
deployment?
• What extent has AQIM’s IED TTPs inculcated European operations? What is the
likelihood that it could lead to an AQIM-directed attack within the EU?
• What are the cultural divisions separating Maghreb and Sahel tribes that may prove
advantageous to future counterinsurgency operations?

1
Ahmed Zaied, “The Influence of Al-Qaeda in West African Sahelian Countries of Mali and Niger,” Federal
Research division, Library of Congress, January 2009
2
Anneli Botha, Terrorism in the Maghreb: The Transnationalisation of Domestic Terrorism, Institute for Security
Studies (ISS) in Pretoria (South Africa), ISS Monograph Series, No. 144, June 2008.
3
For a recent example see, Jarret Brachman, “Taliban Releases ‘Code of Conduct’ Document – W/
CLARIFICATION,” jarretbrachmen.net, July 29, 2009. http://jarretbrachman.net/?p=819
4
A document that once featured prominently on AQIM’s website, see Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The
Life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, (New York, Columbia University Press, 2008), page 249.
5
Will McCants, “Mauritania Again,” June 28, 2008; and, “Saudi Terror Arrests Summary, Government Points
Finger at Iran,” June 29, 2008. Blog: Jihadica.com
6
Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records,
Combating Terrorism Center, West Point, NY, 2007.
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony/pdf/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf
7
“Maghreb” is the traditional Arabic word for the region of North Africa.
8
For example, see: “Five al-Qaeda terrorists surrender to Algerian authorities,” Maghrebia.com (August 13, 2009),
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2009/08/13/newsbrief-01
9
For further reading, see Brian O'Neill, “Al-Qaeda and Numerology in the Maghreb,” Foreignpolicy.com
(December 25, 2007), http://middleeast.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2007/12/25/al-qaeda-and-numerology-in-the-
maghreb/
10
Adam Nossiter, “Suicide Blast Wounds 2 at Embassy in Mauritania,” New York Times (August 8, 2009),
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/world/africa/09mauritania.html
11
Evan Kohlmann, “AQIM Claims Bombing at French Embassy in Mauritania,” NEFA Foundation website,
http://www.nefafoundation.org/documents-area-north-africa.html#aqim0809

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