The North African Franchise: AQIM's Threat to U.S. Security; Strategic Insights, v. 8, issue 5 (December 2009)
Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a growing and evolving North African franchise of Al Qaeda. While the group carries out a significant number of attacks within the Sahel, they have not executed attacks in the United States or Europe. There is significant research concerning the historical development of AQIM . However, there is a dearth of literature on the threat that this group poses to the United States. The purpose of this paper is to fill this research gap and evaluate the threat that AQIM poses to US security. My analysis will demonstrate that AQIM’s operations in Europe and Iraq are a security threat to US facilities and personnel. Moreover, this paper will demonstrate that AQIM has both the intent and capability to conduct attacks against US targets in Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The GSPC: Newest Franchise in al-Qa'ida's Global Jihad
Abstract : The GSPC, one of the most notorious terrorist groups in North Africa, has aligned with Al Qa ida and changed its name to The Organization of al Qa ida in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb. On April 10, 2007, the new organization claimed credit for two suicide car bomb attacks in Algiers that killed 23 people. Some observers have speculated that North Africa may be the next safe haven for al Qa ida, and that European countries may face a greater risk of attack if Algerian terrorist groups expand their base of support in Europe. The alignment of the GSPC with al Qa ida represents a significant change in the group's strategy, however, its decision to join al Qa ida's global jihad should be understood as an act of desperation. The Groupe Salafist pour la Pr dication et le Combat (GSPC) was founded in 1998 as an offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). The GIA was one of the strongest and most violent groups fighting the Algerian government in a civil war that killed over a hundred thousand civilians. Operating as a guerilla army, the GIA was able to establish control over large areas of the Algerian countryside by using terrorism against civilian populations. GIA fighters executed "and sometimes beheaded" anyone suspected of collaborating with the police or gendarmerie. By the late 1990's, the group had lost momentum as government crackdowns reduced its numbers while the group's own hyper violent tactics alienated the Algerian population.
O2 constraints from Paleoproterozoic detrital pyrite and uraninite
Redox-sensitive detrital grains such as pyrite and uraninite in sedimentary successions provide one of the most conspicuous geological clues to a different composition of the Archean and early Paleoproterozoic atmosphere. Today, these minerals are rapidly chemically weathered within short transport distances. Prior to the rise of oxygen, low O2 concentrations allowed their survival in siliciclastic deposits with grain erosion tied only to physical transport processes. After the rise of oxygen, redox-sensitive detrital grains effectively vanish from the sedimentary record. To get a better understanding of the timing of this transition, we examined sandstones recorded in a scientifi c drill core from the South African 2.415 Ga Koegas Subgroup, a mixed siliciclastic and iron formation–bearing unit deposited on the western deltaic margin of the Kaapvaal craton in early Paleoproterozoic time. We observed detrital pyrite and uraninite grains throughout all investigated sandstone beds in the section, indicating the rise of oxygen is younger than 2.415 Ga. To better understand how observations of detrital pyrite and uraninite in sedimentary rocks can quantitatively constrain Earth surface redox conditions, we constructed a model of grain erosion from chemical weathering and physical abrasion to place an upper limit on ancient environmental O2 concentrations. Even conservative model calculations for deltaic depositional systems with suffi cient transport distances (approximately hundreds of kilometers) show that redox-sensitive detrital grains are remarkably sensitive to environmental O2 concentrations, and they constrain the Archean and early Paleoproterozoic atmosphere to have <3.2 × 10 –5 atm of molecular O2. These levels are lower than previously hypothesized for redox-sensitive detrital grains, but they are consistent with estimates made from other redox proxy data, including the anomalous fractionation of sulfur isotopes. The binary loss of detrital pyrite and uraninite from the sedimentary record coincident with the rise of oxygen indicates that atmospheric O2 concentrations rose substantially at this time and were never again suffi ciently low (<0.01 atm) to enable survival and preservation of these grains in short transport systems.