The North African branch of Al Qaida is essentially Algerian. The renewed Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) has a larger project though: not only is it covering all the North African area, but it also represents a new kind of terrorism, seeking to overcome the Algerian question with a geopolitical approach based on an opposition between the West and Islam. This transformation has taken by surprise the Algerian regime, whose policy still relies on a repressive system and on the proposal of an amnesty.

Lakhdar Benchiba is a political analyst and a journalist in Algiers, and is particularly interested in the obstacles to democratic transition. Among other publications, he contributed to the work edited by K. Mohsen-Finan, L'Algérie : une improbable sortie de crise ? (Paris, Ifri, « Notes de l'Ifri », n° 37, 2002).

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