Algerian Civil War - GIA Destroyed, GSPC Continues

GIA Destroyed, GSPC Continues

After receiving much international pressure to act, the EU sent two delegations, one of them led by Mário Soares, to visit Algeria and investigate the massacres in the first half of 1998; their reports condemned the Islamist armed groups. Towns soon became safer, although massacres continued in rural areas. The GIA's policy of massacring civilians had already caused a split among its commanders, with some rejecting the policy; on September 14, 1998, this disagreement was formalized with the formation of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), based in the mountains west of Kabylie and led by Hassan Hattab.

On September 11, Zéroual surprised observers by announcing his resignation. New elections were arranged, and on April 15, 1999, the army-backed ex-independence-fighter Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected president with, according to the authorities, 74% of the votes. All the other candidates had withdrawn from the election shortly before, citing fraud concerns. Bouteflika continued negotiations with the AIS, and on June 5 the AIS agreed, in principle, to disband. Bouteflika followed up this success for the government by pardoning a number of Islamist prisoners convicted of minor offenses and pushing the Civil Harmony Act through parliament, a law allowing Islamist fighters not guilty of murder or rape to escape all prosecution if they turn themselves in.

This law was finally approved by referendum on 16 September 1999, and a number of fighters, including Mustapha Kartali, took advantage of it to give themselves up and resume normal life—sometimes angering those who had suffered at the hands of the guerrillas. FIS leadership expressed dissatisfaction with the results, feeling that the AIS had stopped fighting without solving any of the issues; but their main voice outside of prison, Abdelkader Hachani, was assassinated on November 22. Violence declined, though not stopping altogether, and a sense of normality started returning to Algeria.

The AIS fully disbanded after January 11, 2000, having negotiated a special amnesty with the government. The GIA, torn by splits and desertions and denounced by all sides even in the Islamist movement, was slowly destroyed by army operations over the next few years; by the time of Antar Zouabri's death in early 2002, it was effectively incapacitated. The government's efforts were given a boost in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks; United States sympathy for Algeria's government increased, and was expressed concretely through such actions as the freezing of GIA and GSPC assets and the supply of infrared goggles to the army.

With the GIA's decline, the GSPC was left as the most active rebel group, with about 300 fighters in 2003. It continued a campaign of assassinations of police and army personnel in its area, and also managed to expand into the Sahara, where its southern division, led by Amari Saifi (nicknamed "Abderrezak el-Para", the "paratrooper"), kidnapped a number of German tourists in 2003, before being forced to flee to sparsely populated areas of Mali, and later Niger and Chad, where he was captured. By late 2003, the group's founder had been supplanted by the even more radical Nabil Sahraoui, who announced his open support for al-Qaeda, thus strengthening government ties between the U. S. and Algeria. He was reportedly killed shortly afterwards, and was succeeded by Abou Mossaab Abdelouadoud in 2004.