ENGAGING ALGERIAN OPINION MAKERS ON TERRORIST

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ALGIERS 001534

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/18/2015
TAGS: KPAO KISL PREL PTER AG
SUBJECT: ENGAGING ALGERIAN OPINION MAKERS ON TERRORIST
ATTACKS AGAINST IRAQI CIVILIANS

REF: A. ALGIERS 1386

B. STATE 131453

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Marc J. Sievers,
for reasons 1.4 (b) (d).


1. (C) As described Ref A, Embassy Algiers actively engages
Algerian governmental, political, social, religious, and
media figures on a regular basis. As part of our engagement,
we actively encourage public denunciations of terrorist
violence in general, and of attacks on Iraqi civilians
specifically. The GOA has been supportive of the Iraqi
Transitional Government, as it was of the Iraqi Interim
Government, but Algerian officials have tended not to offer
public condemnations of terrorist attacks in Iraq, in part
probably due to concerns about the shakiness of popular
support for GOA policy on Iraq. Public opinion, as best as
we can gauge it, is torn between horror at attacks on Iraqi
civilians and sympathy for Iraqi "resistance to occupation."
There is also a tendency in the press to hold coalition
forces responsible for Iraqi civilian deaths, based either on
the argument that MNF-I and the ITG have failed to provide
security for civilians, or on the argument that civilians
generally lived securely in Iraq before Operation Iraqi
Freedom.


2. (C) Charge raised the Baghdad suicide bombing that killed
over two dozen children as well as the Musayib bombing that
killed scores of civilians in a July 18 meeting with
Presidential Chief of Staff Larbi Belkheir, and urged
Belkheir to recommend that President Bouteflika condemn such
horrendous attacks. Belkheir said he was sickened by the
reports of both bombings, commenting that these were
"mindless carnage" and "vicious attacks." He accepted a
French non-paper containing the points transmitted ref B, but
deflected Charge's request for a public condemnation by
asking why MNF-I was unable to prevent suicide bombings.


3. (C) Charge and PolEc Chief also called on Dr.
Abderrahamane Chibane, the president of the Algerian Ulama
Association and former minister of religious affairs July 20
with the same message. After a lengthy discussion of Quranic
texts condemning murder, Chibane suggested that suicide
bombings could be justified in some cases, such as when
Palestinians used them to "resist" an Israeli occupation
armed with tanks and Apache helicopters, although he also
said he accepted Israel's right to exist side by side with a
Palestinian state. Regarding Iraq, Chibane said terrorist
attacks on Iraqi civilians were unacceptable and similar to
the terrorism that Algeria suffered from in the 1990s, but
said he did not see the need for the Association of Ulama to
issue a statement condemning them since Algerian imams always
stressed the importance of respecting innocent lives in their
Friday sermons.


4. (C) PolEc Chief July 20 encouraged the spokesman of the
Movement of the Society for Peace (MSP),a moderate Islamist
political party, to make supportive public statements. In
response, MSP Spokesman Abdelmajid Menasra said that those
who kill civilians in the name of Islam are terrorists, not
Muslims. For this reason, statements against extremist
violence were generally not useful. He estimated that one in
a million self-identified Muslims was a terrorist, whereas
better than 99 percent of Muslims were opposed to terrorism
and violence. A true Muslim could not condone attacks on
civilians, be it in Iraq, London, or New York.


5. (C) Menasra believed that Muslim youth were attracted to
the Islamic extremists out of the misperception that America
was at war with Islam, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the
Palestinian territories. He thought it important that the
United States improve its image in the Muslim world and
suggested that the U.S. start by engaging the Muslim world in
dialogue and showing support for moderate Muslims. Menasra
said the attraction of Arab youth toward extremist thinking
was also evidence of the great need for Arab political and
economic reform. Extremist thinking was more attractive, in
his view, to youth without jobs, hope, and the means to
express their ideas. Noting that it was important to
separate ideas based on fact from ideas based on fiction,
Menasra offered to organize a small gathering of Algerian
youth whom PolEc Chief could engage in dialogue. Although it
had been some time since the MSP had issued a statement
condemning the violence in Iraq, Menasra said he would
provide PolEc Chief with copies of future statements in
another effort to bridge the gap between our societies.


6. (C) Separately, Acting PAO spoke with Dr. Ammar Messaadi,
the Dean of Islamic Studies at the University of Algiers.
Although he agreed in principle that targeting civilians was
forbidden by Islam, Messaadi thought only Islamic scholars in
Algeria and the government could speak out forcefully against
targeting civilians. However, he suggested that denouncing
such practices would bring more attention to the extremists
and serve to grow, rather than diminish, their following. He
implied that ignoring extremist tactics was a better
strategy.


7. (C) Acting PAO also approached political science
professor and La Tribune journalist, Louissa Ait Hammadouche,
about the issue. Hammadouche said Algerians view the
Americans, even if our humanitarian intentions are noble, as
a foreign invading force without popular support in Iraq.
Algerians, in her view, believe the U.S. forces are no more
loved in Iraq than French forces would have been had the
French served as peacekeepers in Algeria during the 1990s.
Algerians, therefore, view Iraqi civilian deaths as an
outcome of the invasion itself.


8. (C) Embassy officers, as reported ref A, plan to increase
their contacts with Islamic leaders. We will continue to
press our interlocutors, religious and otherwise, to condemn
terrorist attacks in Iraq, and elsewhere.

SIEVERS