Algeria’s GIA: The First Major Armed Group to Fully Subordinate Jihadism to Salafism
In: Islamic Law and SocietyIn the mid-1990s, the world’s most successful jihadi group – the group that came closest to overthrowing an Arab regime – was Algeria’s Groupe islamique armé (Armed Islamic Group, GIA). Here I argue that the GIA was the first major armed group to prioritize adherence to Salafi theology over the jihadi strategic objective of building a “big tent.” The GIA used the vocabulary of Salafism to justify killing rivals and would-be allies and eventually turned against the Algerian population itself. In part one, I re-read GIA sources, particularly the group’s London-based newsletter Al-Anṣār, to show how the GIA sidelined potential allies in the name of purity. In parts two and three, I examine the effects of this approach. Through analysis of counter-texts by the GIA’s ideological and theological rivals, I demonstrate how their rejection of the GIA sharpened disagreements about what it meant to be a Salafi-jihadi.
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4
Bernard Haykel, “On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action,” in Global Salafism,33-57.
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5
Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29 (2006): 207-39; Daniel Lav, Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
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6
Leah Farrall, “How al Qaeda Works,” Foreign Affairs 90:2 (March/April 2011): 128-138, at 129.
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7
Bernard Haykel, “Al-Qa’ida and Shiism” in Fault Lines in Global Jihad: Organizational, Strategic, and Ideological Fissures, ed. Assaf Moghadam and Brian Fishman, 184-202 (London: Routledge, 2011), 186.
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11
Hegghammer, “Jihadi Salafis or Revolutionaries,” 251-52; Gilles Kepel, “Le GIA à travers ses publications,” Pouvoirs 86 (1998): 67-84; Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaeda Strategist Abu Musʿab Al-Suri (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), Chapter 6; and Alison Pargeter, The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), Chapter 4.
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13
Abdulkader Sinno, Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), 128-29.
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14
Abdulkader Sinno, Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), 119.
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15
On Quṭb, see James Toth, Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
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16
Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), Chapter Six.
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24
Michael Ryan, Decoding Al-Qaeda’s Strategy: The Deep Battle Against America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013).
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26
Joas Wagemakers, A Quietist Jihadi: The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 38. For al-Maqdisī’s intellectual genealogy, see Thomas Hegghammer and Stéphane Lacroix, “Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia: The Story of Juhayman al-ʿUtabyi Revisited,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 39:1 (2007): 103-22, esp. 115-16; and David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), Chapter Two.
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32
Luis Martinez, The Algerian Civil War, 1990-1998 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).
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33
Jacob Mundy, Imaginative Geographies of Algerian Violence: Conflict Science, Conflict Management, Antipolitics (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2015).
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36
Ḥasan ʿAwād, “Nashrat ‘Al-Anṣār’ al-Sirriyya: Filasṭīnī wa-Sūrī li-l-ʿAqīda wa-Jazāʾiriyyūn li-l-Amn,” Al-Hayat 198, 13 November 1995.
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37
Tawil, Brothers in Arms, 127-31; and Cherif Ouazani, “Des émirs plus sanguinaires les uns que les autres,” Jeune Afrique, 17 January 2005 <http://www.jeuneafrique.com/99278/archives-thematique/des-mirs-plus-sanguinaires-les-uns-que-les-autres/>.
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44
Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Long Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 17.
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45
Translated in Mokeddem, Les Afghans algériens, 185-190; quotations at 186 and 188, respectively. Unfortunately, my translation here is from Mokeddem’s French, because he reproduces only a fragment of the original Arabic letter and I have not been able to locate another copy.
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49
Brynjar Lia, “Abu Musʿab al-Suri’s Critique of Hard Line Salafists in the Jihadist Current,” Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel 1:1 (2007) <https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/abu-musab-al-suri%E2%80%99s-critique-of-hard-line-salafists-in-the-jihadist-current>.
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69
Wiliam McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015), 13.
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Algeria’s GIA: The First Major Armed Group to Fully Subordinate Jihadism to Salafism
In: Islamic Law and SocietyIn the mid-1990s, the world’s most successful jihadi group – the group that came closest to overthrowing an Arab regime – was Algeria’s Groupe islamique armé (Armed Islamic Group, GIA). Here I argue that the GIA was the first major armed group to prioritize adherence to Salafi theology over the jihadi strategic objective of building a “big tent.” The GIA used the vocabulary of Salafism to justify killing rivals and would-be allies and eventually turned against the Algerian population itself. In part one, I re-read GIA sources, particularly the group’s London-based newsletter Al-Anṣār, to show how the GIA sidelined potential allies in the name of purity. In parts two and three, I examine the effects of this approach. Through analysis of counter-texts by the GIA’s ideological and theological rivals, I demonstrate how their rejection of the GIA sharpened disagreements about what it meant to be a Salafi-jihadi.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 761 | 206 | 4 |
| Full Text Views | 107 | 11 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 145 | 34 | 0 |