Hattab, "I wanted to be an example to follow for the armed men"

Hassan Hattab, alias Abou Hamza left the armed activity when he surrendered to the Algerian authorities in September 2007. He lives in a secret residence near Algiers, guarded by the security services. Nothing is on about his case. Will he be judged or his case will be dealt with under the provisions of national reconciliation? If he agreed to surrender to the security services means that he received the promise made by the authorities to the armed men who agree to lay down their arms. Hattab seems convinced that the interest of Algeria and those of the Algerian people is to return to peace, laying down arms and joining society.

• Hattab knows, he says, that his appeals will have an impact on the armed men who wait for the opportunity to surrender as he did and many other leaders of the Salafist group recently. The Algerian authorities have announced that El Qaeda leaders and on their head Amine Abou Tamim, emir of ‘Katibat El Ansar’ surrendered late last month. Abou Tamim, reportedly surrendered thanks to the appeals of Hattab, his companion in the Salafists group, although El Qaeda had announced that he was arrested while he was on mission.
  
  The coming months will tell us whether Hattab will certainly succeed in his attempts to influence the armed men, and convince them to lay down their arms and surrender. He criticizes the drift of his former companion in the Salafist group, Abdelmalek Droukdal (Abou Mosaâb Abdelouadoud) who has transformed the Algerian Salafist group and made it a part of El Qaeda.
  
  Hattab believes that the policy followed by El Qaida in Algeria is not that of Droukdal whom he knows well. Besides, he does not hesitate to compare him to Djamel Zitouni who was Emir of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in the mid-nineties of the last century who had deviated from the group’s ideology because of his clan and essentially Antar Zouabri.
  
  The Salafist group has changed a lot since Hattab had left in 2003. It is no longer the same since it joined El Qaeda of Ben Laden in September 2006 by becoming a part of the organization in the Maghreb in January 2007.
  
  Although the Salafist group has become a branch of El Qaeda, Hattab think he always enjoyed respect among the armed men of this organization. This makes him hope to succeed in convincing them, or at least to convince many of them.
  
  The GSPC began to change when Hattab was unable to convince the Mufti Abou El Barae (Ahmed Zerarib) to accept reconciliation with the arrival of Abdelaziz Bouteflika although he was convinced, stated Hattab.
  
  Things became more complicated with the arrival of Nabil Sahraoui (Abou Ibrahim Mustapha), Hattab's successor on the head of the group in August 2003. Less than a month after his installation as emir of the GSPC, he declared his allegiance to Ben Laden after the attacks of 11 September 2003.
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  Hattab has made a statement in which he denounced the haste of the Americans to endorse terrorist operations in New York and Washington to the Islamist groups.
  
  Hattab explains to ‘El Hayat’ the contradictions between his statement and that of Sahraoui. “I was not for these attacks against the United States and I was not one that encouraged that sort of thing, but I knew where it would lead. I was convinced it was the work of El Qaeda, but our reading of what would happen after the attacks that we have misled the United States of America in their accusations against Islamists for fear of reprisals against the Taliban in particular and against Muslims in general. He added “some of the Salafists have criticized our position because they had not understood the meaning of our words. They are of course those who supported the attacks and who agreed to join El Qaeda later.”
  
  Sahraoui did not much last at the head of the GSPC. He was killed by the security services in July 2004 with a group of his men in a search operation near El Kseur in Bejaia. Abou Mosaâb Abdelouadoud, alias Abdelmalek Droukdal succeeded him. It subsequently emerged that it was the desire of Sahraoui before his death.
  
  The new Emir of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) continued the work of his predecessor in approaching El Qaeda and opening direct channels with the organization and establishing connections with leaders of El Qaida in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in which he proposed to join the organization of Oussama Ben Laden.
  
  Droukdal's offer to join El Qaeda came after months of discussions between him and the leaders of his organization. The GSPC needed to prove its existence and also to prove that it is still able to commit operations, after the haemorrhage it had through losing many of its elements, among them emirs, who have surrendered and who have benefited from the provisions of the Reconciliation Act.
  
  With the decline of support for armed activities within Algeria, as expressed by the people who voted for the law on national reconciliation, the Salafist group was then obliged to follow the project of jihad, which could provide them with support.
  
  El Qaeda did not hesitate to accept the offer of the Algerian Salafists, hoping thereby to pass through its cell Maghreb.
  
  Ennahar / Kamil Ettaouil
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