VZCZCXRO6026
RR RUEHTRO
DE RUEHAS #1009/01 3161418
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 121418Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY ALGIERS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8101
INFO RUCNMGH/MAGHREB COLLECTIVE
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 1040
RUEHNK/AMEMBASSY NOUAKCHOTT 6806
RUEHNJ/AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA 0124
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 1981

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ALGIERS 001009 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR DS/IP/NEA, DS, DS/DSS, SDERCC, S/CT, S/ES-O, 
DS/ICI/CI, DS/ICI/PII, DS/IP/FPO, NEA/EX AND NEA/MAG 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PTER PINR PINS ASEC AMGT AG
SUBJECT: ALGERIA: JULY - SEPTEMBER SECURITY TRENDS SUMMARY 
 
ALGIERS 00001009  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: This cable is the first of a series of 
quarterly summaries of security trends in Algeria related to 
terrorism, social unrest and criminal activity.  This report 
refers to trends observed during the period July - September 
¶2009.  The information draws on reporting from local press, 
embassy staff and embassy contacts.  AQIM continued to pose a 
significant security threat in Algeria.  The frequency and 
pattern of attacks were consistent with those observed in the 
first six months of 2009.  Security experts observed that 
government counterterrorism operations restrained AQIM's 
capacity to conduct high-profile attacks.  Nevertheless, AQIM 
carried out lethal operations against government and civilian 
targets, including one attack that killed 23 gendarmes. 
There have been no suicide attacks since last March.  There 
were 34 reported incidents of civil unrest, mostly 
spontaneous civilian protests over declining living 
conditions, some of which resulted in injuries to both law 
enforcement personnel and civilians.  Meanwhile, police 
contacts reported 6,600 kilograms of illicit drug seizures 
and 870 drug-related arrests.  The National Gendarmerie made 
742 arrests related to small arms and ammunition smuggling. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
TERRORISM TRENDS: JULY - SEPTEMBER 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) remained a 
significant threat to government security forces and civilian 
populations, particularly in regions east of Algiers.  The 
frequency and pattern of terrorist incidents between July and 
September were consistent with levels of the first six months 
of 2009, i.e., concentrated mostly in the Kabylie region. 
AQIM primarily targeted government security forces using 
ambushes and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).  There were 
69 bombings, 20 kidnappings and six fake roadblocks between 
July and September, according to local press reports.  During 
this period 169 terrorists were reportedly killed and 13 
wounded.  Security force casualties totaled 60 deaths and 69 
injured.  There were 27 civilian deaths and 17 injuries. 
Security forces arrested 151 individuals on charges of 
terrorism or belonging to a terrorist support network; 51 
terrorists surrendered.  In public statements, Algerian 
officials estimated the number of active terrorists in 
northern Algeria at between 350 and 400 individuals. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Government forces generally limited AQIM's area of 
operations in northern Algeria to the regions of Ain Defla, 
Djelfa, Boumerdes, Dellys, Tizi Ouzou, Bouira, Bordj Bou 
Arreridj, Biskra, Tebessa and Tiaret.  Experts consider 
Boumerdes and Dellys to be the most active regions of AQIM 
activity.  In July and August, the Algerian military launched 
air strikes against targets in both areas. 
 
MORE ISOLATED, BUT STILL DEADLY 
------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Terrorist attacks in Algeria tend to increase in 
August and in the weeks leading up to Ramadan.  In August of 
last year, AQIM launched a series of lethal suicide attacks 
against police and gendarmerie recruitment facilities, 
killing 46 and injuring at least 65.  Later in the month, a 
car bomb outside of a hotel in Bouira killed another 11 
civilians.  In August of this year, AQIM operations failed to 
produce the same level of visibility and lethality.  Security 
experts noted that AQIM had not carried out a suicide bombing 
since the March 9 suicide attack against a communal guard 
post in Tadmait outside Tizi Ouzou.  During July - September, 
AQIM's most deadly attack was the July 29 ambush of a 
National Gendarmerie supply convoy near Damous (Tipaza 
province), located 150 kilometers west of Algiers.  According 
to press reports, AQIM insurgents killed 23 gendarme officers 
and seized weapons and uniforms.  The incident was identical 
to a June 17 AQIM attack on a gendarme escort guarding a 
group of 40 Chinese workers near Bordj Bou Arreridj.  On 
August 4, terrorists detonated a vehicle borne IED in front 
of a police station in Tizi Ouzou that injured 25 
individuals, including four police officers. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Local press and security experts attributed the 
decrease in high-profile AQIM attacks to a summer of 
successful counterterrorism operations and the dismantling of 
support and recruitment networks.  Embassy notes that this 
year's Ramadan period, like last year's, remained relatively 
 
ALGIERS 00001009  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
free of terrorist attacks, despite AQIM threats to sow chaos. 
 Cherif Ouazani, a security correspondent who writes for the 
French language weekly magazine Jeune Afrique, wrote on 
August 30 that AQIM lost up to 20 percent (i.e., 100 
according to Ouazani's estimate) of its combatants in clashes 
with the Algerian army in July and August.  Other press 
reporting stated that government pressure on supply and 
recruitment efforts forced AQIM to revert to traditional 
GSPC/GIA tactics, i.e., ambushes and roadside bombings.  In 
September, authorities arrested ten individuals in Boumerdes 
suspected of belonging to a support network for terrorist 
cells in Si Mustapha, Zemmouri and Baghlia, often called "the 
triangle of death."  An Embassy contact with ties to the 
security establishment told us in October that AQIM's 
geographic isolation - having been bottled up under pressure 
from security forces - hindered communication and 
coordination among AQIM leadership, weakening AQIM's overall 
operational effectiveness.  However, he warned that isolated 
AQIM cells could still carry out attacks independently and, 
therefore, posed a significant threat. 
 
¶6. (SBU) There was evidence of AQIM planning against targets 
in Algiers. A police ordinance disposal team diffused a 
device found near a police station at the Algiers bus 
terminal on August 29 that contained two pounds of TNT and a 
cell phone wired as a remote detonator.  In July, police in 
Algiers detected a group linked to AQIM that was planning to 
conduct pre-operational surveillance against the Embassies of 
the United States, the United Kingdom and Denmark. 
 
CIVIL UNREST 
------------ 
 
¶7. (SBU) Embassy notes continuing incidents of public protest 
over a variety of social and economic issues.  Spontaneous 
riots and other forms of protest over declining living 
conditions occurred frequently outside the capital in the 
eastern Kabylie region (although less intense incidents 
elsewhere in the country underscored that Kabylie was not the 
only region in Algeria experiencing such troubles).  Local 
press accounts identified 34 incidents of civil unrest 
between July and September.  In late July, Kabylie residents 
in Tadmait (near Tizi Ouzou) blocked a major highway with 
burning tires to protest the government's response to 
spreading forest fires in the region.  Several days later, 
the same residents took to the streets to protest a terrorist 
attack that resulted in the death of four young people.  A 
series of small-scale riots throughout the Kabylie region and 
eastern Algeria occurred in late August.  Residents expressed 
their anxiety over deteriorating security conditions, 
unemployment, and a lack of basic public services, such as 
water, electricity and health care.  On August 4, a riot 
erupted near the town of el-Tarf near the Tunisian border 
after a young women died during a construction operation 
conducted by a Japanese firm.  Angry residents barricaded a 
nearby road, set fire to the company's equipment and 
ransacked public buildings in town. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Disputes over provision of public housing also 
sparked protests throughout Algeria.  Hundreds of poor 
families in the village of Sidi Ali Benyoub near Sidi Bel 
Abbes protested the July 28 publication of a list of public 
housing beneficiaries, which, they claimed, allocated 58 
public housing units to families that did not qualify for 
assistance.  On August 31, residents in Medea (50 kilometers 
south of Algiers) rioted over housing allocations and injured 
two police officers.  In September, Algeria's leading 
French-language daily El Watan argued that Algerians have 
lost confidence in government institutions and are 
increasingly inclined to seek their own justice, resulting in 
family and clan disputes that often turn violent.  In 
Algerian cities during Ramadan, altercations between rival 
suburbs were common, especially among youth, which El Watan 
called a new social trend.  In one incident, an argument at a 
family gathering sparked a fight that left one man dead, 19 
injured and resulted in 15 arrests. 
 
CRIME AND ARMS/HUMAN SMUGGLING 
------------------------------ 
 
¶9. (SBU) Local press reported September 15 that, since 
February 2009, the National Gendarmerie (NG) arrested 742 
persons and placed 351 people in custody for smuggling 
 
ALGIERS 00001009  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
weapons and ammunition.  Weapons smuggling activities were 
most frequent in Algeria's eastern provinces, including 
Batna, Msila, Oued Souf and Amenas.  Gendarmerie officials 
said most weapons are of eastern European origin and are 
smuggled to Algeria via Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Libya. 
NG officials also inventoried weapons issued during the 1990s 
to members of citizen militias, called legitimate defense 
groups, to prevent those weapons from entering the black 
market.  According to RSO contacts, authorities seized 222 
cases of ammunition and made 272 arrests between July and 
September. 
 
¶10. (SBU) This quarter witnessed an increase in the number of 
cases of human smuggling associated with illegal migration, 
according to police.  RSO contacts said authorities opened 72 
illegal migration cases and made 308 arrests.  Many illegal 
migrants are sub-Saharan Africans seeking economic 
opportunities in Europe.  Algerian migrants, referred to 
locally as "harraga," have also increased and with them the 
number of illegal networks of smugglers promising to deliver 
potential migrants to Europe in boats departing the Algerian 
coast. 
PEARCE