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 Conflict Summary

The conflict between government forces and Islamist groups in Algeria was initially precipitated by the repressive measures that typified government policy under President Houari Boumedienne. His death in 1978 heartened opposition elements in Algerian society that had long resented the oppression of one-party rule and the imposition of secularism. Algeria’s reliance on revenue from its oil and natural gas reserves left it highly vulnerable to external volatility. The oil shocks of the 1980s further undermined President Benjedid Chadli’s legitimacy in the eyes of a growing number of unemployed. Widespread rioting and civil disobedience in 1988 heightened social disaffection and resulted in the formation of a number of Islamic groups, including the political party Front Islamique du Salut (Islamic Salvation Front, FIS) in 1989. The group’s subsequent success in local, municipal and national elections led the military to overthrow the Benjedid government in 1991 and to ban the FIS. Moving underground, the FIS and its various branches and factions, including the Groupe Islamique Armée (Armed Islamic Group, GIA) and the Armée Islamique du Salut (Islamic Salvation Army, AIS), waged a terrorist campaign against the military-backed government, aiming to establish an extremist Islamist state in Algeria. Intensive counter-terrorist operations against rebel groups and an offer of mass amnesty successfully weakened the GIA and AIS, the later signing a peace accord with the Algerian government in June 1999. While the Algerian authorities assert the GIA is no longer a significant threat, a third group, the Groupe Salafiste pour La Predication et Le Combat (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, GSPC), has emerged in recent years and persists as a threat to Algiers. In 2007, the GSPC decided to call itself Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.