Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
Other Names: AQIM, القاعدة في المغرب الإسلامي
Founded: 2007
Type: Armed Islamist terrorist organisation
Organisation Ideology: Salafi-Jihadism/Islamist Supremacism/Militant Wahhabism
Country: Algeria. Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Tunisia
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Overview
AQIM is a Salafi-Jihadist organisation that aims to overthrow governments in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Mali and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. The group’s attacks have shown significant interest in targeting security forces of these countries. Foreign nationals, particularly those from countries such as France and the US, continue to be a high priority of the group. AQIM networks in Algeria, Tunisia, and the broader region of the Sahel tend to use firearms, landmines and, to a lesser degree, rocket-propelled grenades. AQIM militants are also able to build IEDs and conduct ambushes. However, in Algeria and Tunisia, the capability of the group to conduct attacks beyond their mountainous strongholds and border regions have decreased significantly in recent years due to intensified security operations.
Ties to Extremism
AQIM is one of the most significant militant organisations in North and West Africa. The group was founded in 2007 when the Algerian Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a militant group founded during the Algerian civil war (1991-2002), embraced Al-Qaeda’s global militant doctrine.
In the 2000s, AQIM expanded its operations beyond Algerian borders into the region through the development of local footprints in remote areas, including in northern Mali. In these areas, the group had effectively exploited the political and socioeconomic grievances, limited government presence, and also complicity from rebel and criminal groups. The Arab uprisings across North Africa in 2011 had helped AQIM to gain more space to operate, to expand its network, and more importantly, to put its hands on large amounts of weapons circulating between Libya and the Sahel region. AQIM also took advantage of the volatility that ensued from a coup d’etat in Mali in 2012. The rapid collapse of the Malian state facing the Tuareg rebels gave AQIM the ability to explore the chaos and control the northern towns in the country.
Despite its growing influence in Libya and Mali, AQIM started to fragment. Several small groups emerged along tribal and personal lines. The most important of these groups included Al Murabitun, founded in 2013 by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and Ansar Al Dine, formed in 2012, by Iyad Ag Ghali. However, both groups maintained their loyalty to AQIM but remained autonomous at the operational level.
A French-led operation in Mali has reduced AQIM’s capabilities significantly. In addition to reclaiming northern cities in Mali, French troops killed AQIM’s commander in the Sahel, Abu Zaid, in an airstrike. Other high ranking commanders fled to desert areas in southwestern Libya. However, between 2014 and 2015, militant attacks in Mali and the broader Sahel region intensified, mainly targeting French armed forces, UN peacekeepers, and the Malian army.
AQIM’s threat has evolved in 2015. The group carried out high-profile attacks in large cities such as the mass shooting at Mali’s Radisson Blu hotel in November 2015, and other attacks in central Mali, northern Burkina Faso and Western Niger. In March 2017, the group Jammat Nusrat Al Islam Wal Muslimeen (NJIM) was created. The organisation comprised Al Mourabitoun, Ansar Al Dine, Katiba Macina and AQIM. The new organisation, under the leadership of the Tuareg leader Iyad ag Ghali, sought to expand the group’s area of operation and pledged allegiance to AQIM’s leader Abdelmalek Droukdel.
Between 2017 and 2020, attacks linked to AQIM and JNIM have surged nearly sevenfold. The Sahel region had experienced the most significant increase in terrorist violence in Africa. The violent extremist campaign has caused around 8,000 fatalities and millions of displaced people. In March 2018, AQIM claimed an attack on the French embassy and an army headquarters in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, killing 16 people. Despite the presence of 4,500 French soldiers, and the United Nations Minusma stabilisation mission in Mali, the group’s operations have been spreading southwards to Burkina Faso and Niger. JNIM’s attacks have occurred in northern, eastern, and central Burkina Faso, targeting police, military forces, and humanitarian workers.
Nevertheless, a French-led operation in June 2020 had killed the Emir of AQIM in the Malian city of Talhandak near the Algerian borders, with the support of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). Droukdel, an Algerian militant, had served as the EMIR of AQIM since its establishment. Under his leadership, the group established connections with senior Al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also was behind the strategy to expand AQIM’s presence beyond Algeria and particularly in the Sahel. Five months after Droukdel’s death, the group appointed Abu Ubayda Yusef al Annabi, an Algerian terrorist veteran.
