Det vårades för Al-Qaeda – En studie av GSPC:s utveckling efter alliansen med Al-Qaeda

Sammanfattning: Recent years has seen a growth of so-called ”Al-Qaeda franchises”, terrorist groups who formally ally with Al-Qaeda. This study investigates the phenomenon through how one such actor, the “Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat” (GSPC), has developed after its alliance with Al-Qaeda in 2006 and rebranding as ”Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” (AQIM). By analyzing GSPC before and after the alliance, a comparison is made utilizing Peter Neumann´s theory of Old and New terrorism. With text analysis and historical method supplemented with descriptive statistics, available primary and secondary source material and the “Global Terrorism Database”, are used to investigate the group´s development. The results show that GSPC became increasingly structurally networked but only regionally diffused, with Algeria remaining the operational center of gravity. GSPC also expanded its goals to a regional caliphate, becoming more brutal and indiscriminate in their attacks, media aware and criminally motivated. This created a backlash against the group, causing it to revert to more selective tactics, such as the kidnapping of westerners. The study concludes tentatively, that only the brutal, indiscriminate and media utilizing strategies can be attributed to the alliance, other developments were gradual and derived from the hostile environment the group operated in.