Centrifugal Tendencies In The Algerian Civil War

Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Summer, 2001 by Quintan Wiktorowicz

The ambiguity of the second category-those who fight against Islam by "force, talk or with the pen"-opened the way for attacks against anyone deemed an obstacle to the GIA. Local emirs were responsible for local situations and determining whether individuals or groups were hindering the jihad. While some GIA factions continued to primarily attack the state, others unleashed brutal campaigns of terror against society, supported by GIA issued fatwas (jurisprudential opinions) and communiques authorizing the assaults. No one was immune to GIA accusations of apostasy, and the entire society was trapped between an undemocratic regime that seemed unable or unwilling to protect its populace and an increasingly violent Islamist insurrection.

CIVILIAN POPULATIONS

From 1996-1999, the massacre of civilians was epidemic. Particularly in the area surrounding Algiers, where the GIA traditionally operated, attacks against villages became obscenely common. Although civilian casualties were ubiquitous throughout the conflict, early deaths were predominantly the result of bombs placed in public settings. The massacres that plagued Algeria and drew international attention to the civil war were qualitatively different. Attackers rarely used bombs or firearms during these attacks. Rather, they wielded knives, machetes, and swords, necessitating close proximity to the victims. Ordinary citizens were maimed, decapitated, and burned alive at an alarming rate.

The outbreak of civilian massacres began in 1996 when Antar Zouabri became emir of the GIA. lie inaugurated his new leadership by issuing a foreboding fatwa that charged the entire society with apostasy, reminiscent of Takfir wa Hijra in Egypt. The fatwa authorized attacks against any Algerian who did not join or aid the GIA, including other armed Islamist groups and dissident GIA factions operating independently of the central leadership. This, in effect, created two groups according to GIA doctrine: those that assisted the GIA and those that did not. According to Zouabri, the latter are condemned as apostates and are therefore legitimate targets of jihad. The position is summed up in a GIA communique posted in an Algiers suburb in 1997: "There is no neutrality in the war we are waging. With the exception of those who are with us, all the others are apostates and deserve to die." [19] The GIA argued that support for the armed Islamist groups was an individual responsibility (fard 'ayn), and thus mandatory a ccording to Islam. Anyone who did not offer support became a target of the GIA onslaught.

Most civilian massacres targeted particular villages and even specific families and individuals who no longer supported the GIA. [20] Civilian populations that withdrew their support from the GIA were viewed as apostates according to the narrow definition used in GIA doctrine. This included the families of former GIA members who had left the group, joined other Islamist groups, or surrendered to the regime. According to Moudhir, all of these people "have become the enemies of our fighters, from the youngest of their children to the oldest of their elderly." [21] In response to accusations of indiscriminate killings, he argued that: