SIEGE AWAKENS GHOSTS OF ALGERIA'S "DIRTY WAR"!
Algeria is a key target for Islamist fighters for historical, logistical and symbolic reasons
The twin crises unfolding either side of the Sahara Desert in Mali and Algeria are closely interlinked - the Islamist groups in Mali have their roots in Algeria, while the kidnappers who have just struck in Algeria say they are acting in revenge for France's intervention against their allies to the south.
While some analysts have said it would have not been possible to plan and carry out such a complex operation in the few days since the French intervention in Mali, the well-connected Islamist groups who operate across the Sahara Desert are likely to have had sleeping cells, allied commandos in Algeria and beyond and local sympathisers ready to join in if any high-profile operation was decided.The hostage crisis on a BP oil base at Tiguentourine in southern Algeria brings the issue of Islamist groups back to Algeria, where they developed in the early 1990s before the army routed them, forcing their relocation in Mali where ex-President Toumani Toure had the weakness to tolerate them.
The Malian crisis is, to a large extent, the by-product of a conflict which has been mostly forgotten these days, but which cost the country between 70,000 and 150,000 lives during Algeria's so-called "dirty-war" (1991-2002).
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