ALGIERS, 8 September 2004 — The GSPC extremist movement, the main group in Algeria’s rebellion that has claimed some 150,000 lives since 1992, said Monday it had appointed a new leader. “Brother combatant Abou Mossaab Abdelouadoud was installed as head of the GSPC,” said a statement on the website of the organization, which claims links with Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
Abdelouadoud replaces Nabil Sahraoui, who was killed by the Algerian Army in June. Analysts said the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, the strongest of the armed Islamic groups fighting the government, had been weakened by the loss of Sahraoui.
Security sources say Abdelouadoud, the group’s explosives chief whose real name is Abdelmalek Droukdel, is among the few surviving senior members after Sahraoui and others were killed in a battle with Algerian armed forces in June.
“He was there from the beginning although he didn’t fight in Afghanistan,” said a security analyst. “If anyone can unify the GSPC, it’s him, but it’s already very weakened and divided.”
Last year, the group kidnapped 32 Europeans trekking in the North African country’s desert. Nearly 40 people were killed in July and August and 340 since the start of the year in incidents involving armed men in Algeria, according to officials and media accounts.
