Today's suicide attacks in Algiers leaves us with the following thinking points:
1. The Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (with a new name) joined al-Qaeda last Fall. It is now waging jihad against the Algerian state, civil society and democracy movements in that mostly Arab Muslim country.
2. This is an additional evidence that the War on Terror is global and not linked directly to U.S. Foreign Policy. The Jihadists in Algeria are targeting Algerians from all background while there are no US troops in that country. It is a struggle that began before 9/11 and is resuming today.
3. The ideology of the Algerian Salafists, as I described in my book the War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, aim at brining down 21 Arab states and 52 Muslim Governments around the world, in addition to fighting the "infidels" wherever they can meet them.
4. In the current debate on the War on Terror, and while voices in Congress have called for banning the term "Global War on Terror," the attacks in Algeria today demonstrate that many in the West haven't yet understood the Global aim of the Jihadists. In my book, I argue that the War of Ideas has to be won at home first, so that the Global Conflict with the Jihadist can be won as well.
5. The barbaric attacks in Algiers shows that more than ever, Muslim moderates and anti-Jihadists need to rise against the Jihadi Terrorists before their societies are overwhelmed by the Salafists and the Khomeinists
6. It is to note that the attack in Algiers is linked to last week attacks in Morocco and the confrontations in the rest of North Africa and Somalia.
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