Al Qaida franchises spread in Africa

Al Qaeda is providing a unifying front for jihadist group across the world, a now continues its growth in Africa.

Al Jazera posted the following on Friday 27/1/07:

"An Islamic group in Algeria has changed its name to al-Qaeda after getting the approval of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda leader, according to a statement posted on the internet.

The move on Friday by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) marked the latest attempt by Islamic groups exploiting the 'al-Qaeda' brand name and follows the establishment of regional branches in Saudi Arabia and Iraq."

read more from al jazera , a pro Jihadist media group.

In addition there is a new unifying strategy that was proposed by an Imam operating out of Kuwait. This strategy begins to tie all these Al Qaeda franchises (Sunni Islam) into a multi-national Islamic State (Caliphate) that carries out global strategies, collects taxes across country lines, and wages war against both secular Islamic states and non-Islamic states.

It also identifies the rising Shia jihadist movements (Iran - Hamas, etc) as enemies of the new Caliphate, and discusses a war on two fronts - American led West and Iran led Shia Jihad...

The meaning of this, in Africa, is that we need to eventually plan for:

• Tactics used and developed in Iraq to more quickly spread to Multiple locations in Africa (Improvises explosive devices IEDs), suicide bombers, etc. and any new tactics that arise.
• New strategies to be copied quickly. If an NGO or aid group is attacked in one place with success then we can expect that to happen in other locations more quickly.
• Exposure of Jihad funding sources. The Islamic NGOs and more covert methods for funding these activities will begin to be exposed as logistics lines are further stretched.
• Exposure of communication-link methods, such as airline travel patterns for couriers.
• Need to identify potential candidate organizations inside African states that might seek affiliation. Watching their activities as they try to establish Al Qaida contacts.

We will add more to this post later.....

-Shimron Issachar