October 8, 2014: For the last week the government has been seeking fifteen members of Jund al Khalifa, including the group’s leader, for responsibility for the recent kidnapping and videoed beheading of a French tourist. All fifteen of the wanted men are Algerians most of them veterans of the Islamic terrorism campaign in the 1990s. The government believes the Jund al Khalifa crew are the ones responsible for most of the Islamic terrorist attacks west of the capital in the last few years and now these guys have made themselves hated by most Moslems for this grisly murder. The government wants Jund al Khalifa found and destroyed and apparently many Algerians agree with that approach.

The murder of the French tourist not only visibly angered most Algerians but Moslems in France as well. There have been some public demonstrations by French Moslems denouncing ISIL and Jund al Khalifa.

In addition to a lot of tourists from France there are also 30,000 French citizens living in Algeria. If Jund al Khalifa wanted to kidnap more foreigners there are plenty of French available, although some of them are Moslem. But ISIL has not hesitated to behead or crucify Moslems they disagreed with. When the French tourist was recently kidnapped, several Algerians who were hiking with him were freed so the Jund al Khalifa crew have some concern for their popular image inside Algeria. Actually, Islamic radicalism lost most of its popular appeal in the 1990s when Islamic terrorists organized a rebellion and murdered over 100,000 civilians who did not agree with them (or enthusiastically aid them). Some of the Islamic terrorists still operating in Algeria seem to acknowledge that connection and avoid further antagonizing civilians. .

October 7, 2014: Some 400 kilometers southeast of the capital soldiers killed three Islamic terrorists

October 6, 2014: In the southeast the army detected a number of vehicles (two trucks and six motorcycles) crossing the border illegally from Niger. Troops ambushed the vehicles and persuaded the twenty foreigners (12 from Sudan and eight from Chad) to surrender. Weapons were found and the army is trying to determine if these men or gangsters, Islamic terrorists or, as is often common in this part of the world, both. This is the third such armed incursion from Niger in the last month. The other two incidents resulted in five intruders killed and seven arrested. The government has sent more troops to the Niger border to prevent what appears to be an effort by Niger based Islamic terrorists to set up a base in Algeria.

October 3, 2014: In the southeast the army detected two trucks crossing the border illegally from Niger. Troops ambushed the vehicles resulting in five Islamic terrorists killed and four captured. All were Niger natives except for one Libyan. The two vehicles were destroyed in the gun battle.

October 2, 2014: In the northeast Tunisian warplanes and helicopters could be seen just across the border attacking a group of Islamic terrorists. Tunisia later reported that troops on the ground were also involved.

September 28, 2014: In the west (150 kilometers south of Oran) Islamic terrorists shot dead two soldiers who were checking security at a power plant.

September 22, 2014: Algerian Islamic terrorist group (Jund al Khalifa) released (via the Internet) a video of them beheading a French tourist they had recently kidnapped. Jund al Khalifa had demanded that France halt bombing attacks on ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) in Syria and France refused. After the beheading video appeared the U.S. State Department again warned Americans to be very careful if they visit Algeria, or any other Moslem country known to contain an active faction affiliated with ISIL.

September 21, 2014: In the southeast, near the Libyan and Niger borders, a local tribe, the Tibu are crossing into Libya to join Libyan Tibu in a fight for control of a local oil field. There is not much government in Libya at the moment so local officials in Algeria appear to have told the Algerian Tibu that the Algerian security forces would stay out of this as long as the Tibu kept the violence in Libya. It’s common in Africa for tribes to have people on both sides of international borders and it is customary for countries to ignore tribal people freely crossing back and forth as long as nothing illegal is involved (like large scale smuggling or criminals escaping from one country to another).

In the mountains about a hundred kilometers east of the capital a French tourist was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists (Jund al Khalifa) who soon released a video of the captive asking the French government to stop bombing ISIL targets in Iraq and Syria. France refused.

September 20, 2014: In the east (Jijel Province) soldiers, acting on a tip, found two Islamic terrorists in the mountains and killed them. Weapons, ammo and other equipment were recovered.

September 17, 2014: Just across the border in Tunisia police cornered and killed an Algerian Islamic terrorist (Abu Ayman al Wahrani) long wanted on both sides of the border. Another Islamic terrorist was with Wahrani and he also died in the gun battle.

September 13, 2014: An Algeria based faction of AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), calling itself Jund al Khalifa renounced its ties to al Qaeda and declared its allegiance to ISIL. In July AQIM leaders had reaffirmed their allegiance to al Qaeda and condemned ISIL, which had recently declared a new caliphate (Islamic empire run by ISIL). Small groups of AQIM have been hiding out in the coastal mountains east of the capital for years and troops and police are constantly searching for these Islamic terrorists in the thinly populated mountains and forests along the coast.