It is classified as a terror group by the UK,[12] as well as by the US under the name Jund al-Khilafah (JAK-A).[13]Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan have also designated it as a terrorist group.[14][15]
History
Under Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
Wilayah al-Jazair was previously a faction of
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Al Qaeda affiliate in North and West Africa.[16] AQIM grew out of Algerian Islamist groups that had fought in the
1990s Civil War.[16] Abdelmalek Gouri (who would later lead Jund al-Khilafah) was formerly the "right-hand man" of
Abdelmalek Droukdel, who was the leader of AQIM. Gouri was also part of an AQIM cell responsible for suicide attacks on the government's headquarters and the UN compound in
Algiers in 2007. He was also behind an attack in
Iboudrarene in April 2014 that left 11 Algerian soldiers dead.[16]
As Jund al-Khilafah
On 14 September 2014, the leader of
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the central region,
Khaled Abu Suleiman (nom de guerre of Abdelmalek Gouri), announced in a communique he was breaking allegiance with
Al-Qaeda and took an oath of allegiance to the leader of the
Islamic State,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He was reportedly joined by an AQIM commander of an eastern region of Algeria. He claimed that other members of AQIM had "deviated from the right path" and declared to al-Baghdadi "You have in the Islamic
Maghreb men who will obey your orders."[17]
As Wilayah al-Jazair
On 13 November 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced that the group had changed its name to "Wilayah al-Jazair" in accordance to the structure of the rest of groups aligned with IS.[7][18] In December 2014, Gourdel's killer was killed by Algerian security forces.[2] In May 2015, over 20 members of the group, including commanders, were killed in a military raid.[19][20] The group was devastated by the raids, and turned its focus to propaganda while attempting to rebuild. Although it advertised the pledges of allegiance of several AQIM splinter factions during 2015, none of the groups involved are believed to be large, and the group did not claim responsibility for any attacks in the year following the kidnapping and killing of Gourdel.[20]
Timeline
April 2014: Jund al-Khilafah ambushes
Algerian army convoy in Iboudrarene, killing 11 Algerian soldiers and wounding 5.[21][22]
20 December 2014: Algerian soldiers kill three Wilayah al-Jazair members in the mountains near
Sidi Daoud.[16]
22 December 2014: Wilayah al-Jazair leader Abdelmalek Gouri and two other militants were killed by the Algerian army in a military operation in
Issers. Afterwards, troops recovered two automatic rifles, explosive belts, and a large amount of ammunition and mobile phones.[16]
28 April 2015: The Algerian military killed five Wilayah al-Jazair militants in an ambush in the region of Tizi Ouzou, east of Algiers.[26]
20 May 2015: Algerian security forces ambushed a Wilayah al-Jazair meeting east of Algiers, killing at least 21 fighters and capturing two others.[19]
26 June 2015: A terrorist attack organized by
IS resulted in 38 deaths in
Sousse.
20 February 2016: Wilayah al-Jazair claimed to have killed three Algerian soldiers in Mount
Shakshut in
Bouira in late February. This claim was denied by the Algerian government.[27]
^"Archived copy"(PDF). www.gov.uk. Archived from
the original(PDF) on 13 April 2016. Retrieved 17 January 2022.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link)
^Beirut bureau; Hashem, Mostafa (13 November 2014). MacSwan, Angus; Storey, David; McCool, Grant (eds.).
"Islamic State leader urges attacks in Saudi Arabia: speech". Reuters. The
Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Retrieved 3 July 2019. We announce to you the expansion of the Islamic State to new countries, to the countries of the Haramayn, Yemen, Egypt, Libya [and] Algeria