The dramatic abduction of Libyan Prime Minister Zeidan by gunmen last week shows that chaos still reigns in the country. Geoff Porter, head of North Africa Risk consulting, explains how Libya is driving regional instability. He suggests that Europe may have to do more to help the country, as the Obama administration puts Libya on the back burner.
At a vibrant and bustling French restaurant high above the Bay of Algiers in 2005, a loud crash sent my Algerian friends diving for cover under the table. Diners at other tables all did the same, leaving me sitting upright and alone. When it became clear that a waiter had dropped a serving tray stacked with dishes, everyone reemerged laughing. My friends joked that I was too slow. Had it been the 1990s, it would have been a terrorist bomb and I would have been dead. Gallows humor to ease the trauma of Algeria's "Dark Decade" when it fought an Islamist insurgency. There has never been an official count, but estimates are that 150,000 to 200,000 people died during the ten year conflict, many of them in terrorist attacks targeting public places, just like the French restaurant where we were having dinner.
A week has passed since the terrorist attack on a natural gas facility in Algeria, but risk analysts and security experts are still undecided about the incident's likely impact in the energy world.
The price of oil, a good indicator of anxiety in the energy market, went up modestly right after the attack, but then it stabilized. No energy company has suspended operations in Algeria, nor has any company announced it will hold off on future investments in North Africa, a key source of oil and gas supplies.
The Algerian hostage crisis ended over the weekend and the loss of life was greater than many had expected. At least 37 foreign hostages died including three Americans.
It was 2007 when Algeria’s Islamist insurgents changed the rules of a war that had raged, in various forms, for decades. That was the year Algeria witnessed its first suicide bombing — the handiwork of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which had formed the previous year. Over the course of 2007 and 2008, AQIM carried out three sensational suicide bombings, resulting in more than 500 deaths and ushering in a new era of terrorism.
Erin Burnett discusses U.S. involvement in the war against Islamic militants in northern Mali.
Algeria is a country that is often overlooked in the U.S., and Algerians like it that way. A popular saying in Algiers, the capital, is la bonne vie est la vie cachée. But Algeria has become an important component of U.S. foreign policy. On the sidelines of the UNGA in New York, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that the group responsible for the attack on the U.S. consulate mission in Benghazi, Libya may be linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an al Qaeda affiliate that controls a large part of northern Mali. If true, then there is an al Qaeda haven in northern Mali fueling jihadi terrorism in Libya, and Algeria is squarely in the middle.
Panelists talked about domestic security in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa, which includes Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco.. Some of the topics they discussed were security threats and government management of dissent and the influence of U.S. policies. The program included questions from audience members.
Erin Burnett talks to Geoff Porter, who briefed Amb. Stevens on the security situation in Libya.
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