The death of Bin Laden may split off terror groups in the Sahel

The death of al-Qaeda number one Osama Bin Laden is likely to split off the terror groups in the Sahel region, observers believe.

In fact, terror groups activating in Batna province, were the first to get in touch with al-Qaeda, many years ago, when Bin Laden sent his special envoy, Ahmed Alouane, alias Abou Mohammed al-Yamani, to look on how to pave the way for the local group to join al-Qaeda.

Security services had revealed such details in 2003, when the envoy of Bin Laden and Mullah Omar was eliminated in Merouana mountains, in Batna province.

Two years later (11 September 2003), the freshly promoted national leader of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Nabil Sahraoui, who used to operate in Merouana and Aures mountains, paid allegiance to al-Qaeda. 

Bin Laden’s organization aimed at making of Batna a crossing-point to terrorists and arms towards the fiefs of the Sahara and the Sahel region.

However, the joining of GSPC to al-Qaeda was contested by several leaders inside the group. The protagonists prefer to focus their fight locally, rather than joining international terrorism and being a propaganda wing to al-Qaeda in the region.  

The death of Bin Laden may spark out the split inside the GSPC, observers said. The coming of Ayman Zawahiri or any other leader on top of al-Qaeda organization would never be enough to reunite the terror group, given that Bin Laden used to have a charismatic personality and a psychological influence on extremists that cannot be filled by another person, observers believe.