Two Sahara-based Jihadist Groups Merge

Two groups that fought in Mali earlier
this year and carried out the deadly twin
suicide bombings in Niger in May have
become one to fight back against what
they called the "crusader campaigns" of
France and its allies against Muslims.

Three months after they carried out the
Arlit and Agadez suicide bomb attacks
together in Niger, the two groups,
MUJAO and the Those Who Sign in
Blood Brigade, have decided to make it
official.

In press releases published by
Mauritanian press agency ANI, the two
groups say they are merging into a new
one. They already had strong ties. Both
are offshoots of al-Qaida's Algerian-
dominated franchise in the Maghreb,
AQIM.

ANI quotes one written statement as
saying that the new group brings
together fighters "from the Nile to the
Atlantic" to fight what it called a "Zionist
campaign against Islam and Muslims."

The new group pledged support for
Islamists in Egypt and promised attacks
against France and its allies as revenge
for the French-led military intervention
against the militants in northern Mali
this year.

The militants named their group the
"Mourabitounes," Arabic for the
Almoravids, the Islamist Berber dynasty
based in Morocco nearly 1,000 years
ago that reached as far south as
Senegal.

Senegalese university professor Bakary
Sambe studies radical Islamist
movements in the Maghreb and sub-
Saharan Africa.

"It was these Berber armies from the
Moor ethnicity in the Sahara that
conquered North Africa and a part of
southern Spain between the 11th and
12th centuries. In taking this name, the
new group is drawing on that history
and the role that dynasty played in
spreading Islam into West Africa. The
name also reflects the militants' desire
to unite and regroup following losses in
Mali," said Sambe.

Anthony Skinner, Head of Middle East
and North Africa research for London-
based risk analysis firm Maplecroft,
called the announced merger a
"publicity stunt."

"They are mindful of the fact that the
regional dynamic in Libya, Mali and
Egypt, and to a far lesser degree in
Tunisia, is playing in their favor. If we
look at statements by Ayman al-
Zawahiri, the chief of al-Qaida core, the
overall narrative is well, look, trying to
engage in the political process, trying to
engage in democracy, is futile as
witnessed by the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt, because a coup was launched   to
oust former president [Mohamed] Morsi.

So, the hope is that this narrative, this
rhetoric, will actually encourage
disaffected, disillusioned frustrated
youths who can relate to Islam, or be it
a warped version of Islam, and that they
will join their ranks," said Skinner.
Still, Skinner said the threat of
asymmetric attacks in North Africa and
the Sahel remains high in large part due
to porous borders and ongoing
instability in Libya.

Analysts say it is hard to know this new
group's strength.
MUJAO, or the Movement for Oneness
and Jihad in West Africa, broke off from
AQIM in 2011, pledging to spread the
fight farther south on the continent.
MUJAO controlled the northern Malian
town of Gao until French air strikes and
ground troops pushed them out in
January.

Former AQIM commander and wanted
Algerian terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar
founded his breakaway group, the Those
who Sign with Blood Brigade, just
before that French-led intervention.
The brigade carried out one of the most
ambitious terror attacks the region has
ever seen in January. Fighters raided a
natural gas plant in Ain Amenas in
eastern Algeria, taking 600 people
hostage and ultimately killing at least
37. All but one of the dead were
foreigners.
This new, merged group has not yet
announced a leader, although
Mauritanian press reports that it is not
an Algerian.

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