Algeria: Death To Cell Phones

Archives

August 11, 2007: Police killed 47 Islamic terrorists last month, and over two dozen so far this month. Nearly 300 people have died in Islamic terror related violence so far this year. Over 200,000 died since the Islamic terror campaign began 15 years ago. Among the Islamic terrorists killed this month, were six foreigners (three Tunisians, two Libyans and a Moroccan), all of them wanted by police in their home countries. Police have conducted several successful operations in rural areas outside the capital. Several arms caches were found, plus three enemy camps and one bomb factory.

Islamic radicals in North Africa reorganized last year, joining together as a franchise of al Qaeda. The largest Islamic terrorist group has always been in Algeria, and apparently Al Qaeda In North Africa (as the new franchise was known), decided to revive the widespread Islamic terrorism that Algeria had known in the 1990s, when the death toll was often hundreds a month. But the majority of Algerians have lost their enthusiasm for Islamic terrorism as a cure for anything. That bird has flown, and most Algerians will turn in any terrorists they come across. For this reason, the terrorists hide out in rural areas, where there is no cell phone coverage. But once they enter urban neighborhoods, where the millions of new cell phone users live, the risk of being detected and reported skyrocket. Although the terrorists use cell phones to trigger roadside bombs, the cell phone is not their friend.