Prime Minister Stephen Harper has denied paying a ransom, and Kory Teneycke, the Prime Minister’s press secretary, told Maclean’s Canada did not make any concessions to the governments of Mali and Niger to persuade them to exchange prisoners with al-Qaeda. “The government of Canada did not give any money or considerations as part of a deal to get these two hostages released,” he said.
Even if AQIM profited financially from the kidnapping of Fowler and Guay, Pham cautions against imagining that the group is morphing into nothing more than a criminal enterprise. Yes, AQIM is engaged in fraud, extortion, and petty crime. But getting the money is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, he notes. “The group itself, the core group, remains committed to its ideological roots, as well as its objective of overthrowing the governments of Algeria and other Maghrebi states,” he says.
According to AQIM’s leader, Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, who is also known as Abdelmalek Droukdel, the group’s commitment to jihad extends far beyond North Africa. “We see that it’s our duty to join al-Qaeda so that we can have our fight under one flag and one leadership in order to get ready for the confrontation,” he said in an audiotape in response to questions sent to him by the New York Times last summer.
Wadoud listed a litany of offences he believes have been committed against Muslims by the “Jew-crusader ally,” in Gaza, Jerusalem, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, and he promised to fight back. “If the U.S. administration sees that its war against the Muslims is legitimate, then what makes us believe that our war on its territories is not legitimate? Everyone must know that we will not hesitate in targeting it whenever we can and wherever it is on this planet.”
Despite forays into the grubby business of racketeering and extortion, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has global ambitions. Whatever Robert Fowler and Louis Guay’s kidnappers got in exchange for freeing the Canadians, they’re not going to disappear into the desert. We’ll hear from them again.
