International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 45

Know What You Are Fighting
According to Ahmed Merrani, 31 one of the founders of the FIS, the MIA
(Armed Islamic Movement) was created well before 1991 by former companions
of Bouyali. At the same time, the SIT (Islamic Workers Syndicate) was created for
reasons foreign to syndicalism—for many Islamist leaders rejected the very concept of
a syndicate, which they saw as “heretical.” This opportunistic creation in fact served
their war plans. Founded by Said Makhloufi, one of the founders of the FIS, and Said
Eulmi, this SIT was formed quickly, according to military standards. From the base
to the summit of the hierarchy, its officials carried the rank of sergeant, captain, and
general.
The formal recruitment of the FIS thus began before its creation. 32 Starting
in January 1991, Saïd Makhloufi distributed a brochure to mosques calling for civil
disobedience, which was reported in the local media. 33 During the period of the legal
FIS, its leaders, playing both sides, manipulated the emerging terrorist groups and
those already created under a variety of names: MIA, El Bakoun Alla El Ahd, Faithful
to the Promise, and others.
Thus even as a congress of the FIS was being held in Batna (July 1991), initiated
by Abdelkader Hachani, the number three of the FIS who became the number one after
the arrests of Madani, Belhadj, and Mohammed Saïd, secret meetings were being held
in the Zbarbar Mountains under the leadership of Chebouti, Méliani, Mkhloufi, Moh
Leveilley or his deputy Layada, Azedine Baa, and other terrorist leaders. The Batna
congress aimed to reorganize the party on a new foundation following the directives
of its two imprisoned leaders. Hachani then declared that they gave orders to maintain
the legalistic line.
During the Batna congress, the Majlis El Choura, the newly reconstituted
advisory council, suspended Said Makhloufi and Khemreddine Kherbane. Makloufi
went into hiding to reorganize the disparate entities and reconcile the self-proclaimed
leaders of the jihad. Kherbane went to Afghanistan to organize the return of Algerian
combatants. He then became the vice president of the executive authority of the FIS
abroad.
These underground meetings aimed to unify the disparate groups that, in
the field, were beginning to target police and the military. Before the FIS was even
disbanded, there was the Gemmar attack in the region of El Oued, in the southeast of
the country, where a barracks of border guards was attacked on November 28, 1991,
by “Tayeb al-Afghani,” whose name was Aissa Messaoudi, a veteran of Afghanistan.
In the night of February 8–9, 1992, six police officers were killed in Bouzerina, in the
capital, by the group of Moh Leveilley. Named Mouhammed Allel, he then proclaimed
31
Ahmed Merrani, La fitna (Algiers: self-published, 1999).
32
The leaders of the SIT would be found again at the heads of the worst terrorist organizations: Said
Makhloufi, Cherati Yekhlef, first mufti to have used fatwa to legitimize the assassination of police
officers and their families, an Abdelrahim Hocine, author of the attack on the Houari Boumedine
Airport on August 29, 1992.
33
ISee the newspaper Alger Républicain (January 23–30, 1991).
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