A report issued by the American Enterprise Institute revealed that Algeria managed to prevent terrorist threat and thwart the schemes of various terrorist organizations that tried to find a foothold in the country, thanks to proactive security work and the widespread popular rejection of extremist ideology.
The 22-page report, attached to tables and illustrative data of the spread of terrorist groups in the continent, tried to shed light on the activity of what was called “Salafist jihadism”, stressing that despite the imminent danger of the expansion of the terrorist movement in the region, “African countries, such as Algeria, have succeeded in containing the danger of terrorist groups, which continue to pose a threat to its neighbors”.
The report stressed that Algeria had “faced significant terrorist violence, but was able to combat this threat to a large extent.” The report recalled the beginning of the spread of terrorist activity in Algeria, which constituted “a large part of the terrorist threat in North and West Africa through Al-Qaeda.” In the Islamic Maghreb and other organizations that preceded it, which were formed in the nineties of the last century and continued until the first decade of the twenty-first century.”
The document, which is considered an acknowledgment of the results achieved by Algeria in the fight against terrorism, stated that “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb launched several major terrorist attacks in Algeria in the 1990s and early 2000s, but these attacks declined over the past ten years.”
The report considered that several factors led to this decline, including “the improvement of the Algerian military capabilities and the strengthening of military cooperation with the countries of the region,” on the one hand, as well as the improvement of social conditions on the other hand, given that “the unstable social situation at that time was one of the reasons for the spread of extremist thought.”
For reference, the American Enterprise Institute is a think tank for public policy research, founded in 1943 and based in Washington. It specializes in studying various geo-strategic issues and those related to foreign and defense policy and works to shed light on issues related to freedoms, democracy and human development.
