Algerian authorities increase oversight of mosques and imams

2007-09-21

In light of several repentant terrorists' confessions they were recruited by imams to join armed groups, Algerian authorities have increased the attention paid to mosques and have stepped up efforts to monitor imams.

By Said Jameh for Magharebia in Algiers – 21/09/2007

[Getty Images] Terrorist groups use mosques to recruit young suicide bombers

Algeria's Ministry of Religious Affairs has stepped up its oversight of mosques and imams, after the parents of 15-year old suicide bomber Nabil Belkacemi said al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb recruited their son at l’Apreuval Mosque in a working-class neighbourhood of Algiers.

Belkacemi killed 30 people on September 8th, in an attack on a naval barracks in Dellys. The mosque's imam, Amine, was responsible for recruiting Belkacemi and other youngsters and was arrested more than one month ago.

El Khabar reported on September 19th that the Ministry of Religious Affairs sent a letter to its directorates in 48 provinces, requiring local imams to highlight the danger of being recruited into terrorist groups and to call upon their followers to reject violence.

The letter urged the imams to "address the danger of takfir speeches, the sin of using [takfir] as a basis for legal judgments, and to alert parents to the dangers of recruitment of their children by armed terrorist groups and their use in suicide bombings."

The Ministry said the holy month of Ramadan, where large numbers of worshippers go to the mosque for prayers, represents an opportunity to inform many citizens of the dangers of takfir and of killing in the name of Islam.

The current increase in oversight of mosques and imams follows an incident in which a muezzin used his mosque's loudspeaker in the city of Mostaganem directly after dawn prayers on September 15th with a call for the people to stop sleeping and come to jihad.

"Come to salvation! Come to Jihad! O people, wake up, you have slept enough!" the muezzin repeated several times.

Speaking at a religious seminar on Sunday (September 16th), Minister of Religious Affairs Bouabdellah Ghlamallah said Algeria's mosques are not under sufficient oversight to prevent occasional violations. He added the mosques are still far away from performing the role assigned to them, because most of the current imams have not received university education.

While the Ministry of Religious Affairs says oversight over its mosques and imams is insufficient, General Director of National Security Ali Tounsi said his institution keeps mosques under constant surveillance. He said the country's security agencies send information on violations or incitement to violence to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is legally responsible to addressing the issues.

Tounsi added that the security authority's surveillance of the mosques "is done on an ongoing basis, and that the work of the teams is very positive."

According to El Khabar, the stepped-up oversight and surveillance efforts will continue after Ramadan.

It is believed that more than 20 young men from working-class neighbourhoods in southern Algiers have left their homes since the April 11th bombings of the Government Palace and a police station in the capital. The young men joined al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb through recruitment networks, some of which have operated within mosques.

During Algeria's security crisis in the 1990s, the country's mosques were a battleground between government efforts to control them and various religious currents.

The authorities regained control over the mosques only in the late 1990s, and in 2001 they amended the penal code to criminalise the use of mosques for political purposes.