Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

610 • SALAFIST GROUP FOR PREACHING AND COMBATrecruits are estimated to make up 9–25 percent of the foreign fightersin Iraq.Led initially by Hassab Hattab, a regional commander of theArmed Islamic Group, the GSPC broke away from the GIA in 1998in protest of the increasing targeting of civilians by the GIA. Accordingto the research of Rohan Gunaratna, the GPSC quickly coordinateditself with al Qa’eda to become al Qa’eda’s main recruiting andorganizing branch in Europe. By 2002 the membership of GIA hadshrunk to 800 while the GSPC’s was at 1,800, making the GSPC thelargest remaining active Islamic fundamentalist insurgent group inAlgeria, which continued to reject the truce and amnesty offers fromthe Algerian government that other Islamic groups had by then accepted.A GSPC plot to launch bombing and sarin gas attacks duringthe 1999 millennium celebrations upon the European Union parliamentbuilding in Strasbourg, and also upon the city’s cathedral andmarket, was thwarted by police raids on the Frankfurt-based GSPCcell in charge of that operation. In September 2003 Hattab was oustedas leader of the GPSC by Nabil Sahraoui over the former’s reluctanceto tie the group even more closely with al Qa’eda. After Sahraoui waskilled by Algerian forces on 20 June 2004, Abu Musab Abdulwadoodbecame leader of the group.According to the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorismdatabase, the GSPC carried out some 47 attacks from 1988 to late2007, causing 130 deaths and at least 401 injuries. The GSPC wasresponsible for the May 2003 kidnappings of 32 European touristsin six coordinated incidents. Seventeen of the hostages were freed byAlgerian forces on 13 May, and the remaining hostages, except forone who had died of heat stroke during captivity, were freed by theGSPC on 18 August, following a $6 million ransom payment by theGerman government. On 6 September 2007 the GSPC attempted asuicide bombing in a failed assassination attempt against AlgerianPresident Abdelaziz Bouteflika during his visit to the northeasterntown of Batna, causing at least 15 deaths and injuring at least 70people. On 11 April 2007 two suicide car bombings in Algiers targetedthe prime minister’s office, killing 12 and injuring 118, and apolice station located near the international airport, killing 11 andinjuring 44. On 11 December 2007 the GSPC conducted two moresuicide car bombings in Algiers, one attacking the offices of the AlgerianConstitutional Court and another against the United Nations