NEWS ANALYSIS : Hijacking Only Confirms U.S. Fears on Algeria

Even before the Christmas Eve jet hijacking in Algiers, Clinton Administration officials had identified the rapidly escalating conflict between Algeria’s military-backed regime and its Islamic opposition as the most serious “new” foreign policy crisis likely to grab world headlines in 1995.

Algeria’s regime took power after a January, 1992, military coup voided elections that seemed certain to lead to an Islamic government. The Administration has tried, without success, to persuade its Western allies--particularly France, Algeria’s former colonial power--to quit propping up the military-backed regime.

The Algerian junta set off alarm bells in Washington in October when it decided to abandon attempts at reconciliation in favor of an all-out campaign to eradicate the growing Islamic opposition. The shift marked a critical turning point, U.S. officials say.

“Our view is that the Algerian regime cannot win,” said a senior U.S. specialist on Algeria. “Eradication and repression won’t work. The past three years show that this kind of strategy not only doesn’t work, it instead further radicalizes the opposition. This will only bring about exactly the opposite result.”

As if on cue, Muslim extremists hijacked the Air France jet Saturday, and it was flown to the French Mediterranean port of Marseilles early Monday. The hijackers had killed three passengers during the initial standoff in Algiers. French police stormed the plane at dusk Monday in a firefight that left all four terrorists dead and 25 injured among the passengers, crew and police.

Only 24 hours before the hijacking, the State Department had warned Americans to get out or stay out of the North African country if they lacked effective means of protecting themselves.

“Continuing attacks against foreigners indicate that the level of risk in Algeria has increased,” the State Department said. “There is a heightened risk of danger to persons traveling overland without adequate security arrangements.”

Before the hijacking, more than 70 foreigners, including two dozen French citizens, had been killed since Muslim extremists demanded in late 1993 that all foreigners leave the country.

And as for the Algerian toll, the government admitted this fall that it had reached 10,000 killed. American sources estimate the total at more than 20,000 and rising fast.

The military-installed government of President Liamine Zeroual has begun using “totally ruthless tactics, whatever it takes” to eliminate the Islamic Salvation Front, the front-runner in the aborted 1992 elections, and the more militant Armed Islamic Group, another Administration official said.

Evidence is growing of indiscriminate executions during military counterinsurgency operations, U.S. officials say. Elite government commandos, long tied to the deaths of many Islamists and civilians, are also more active. Torture and detention without trial are also rampant, according to U.S. officials and human rights groups.

As in previous, more limited counterinsurgency campaigns, the latest crackdown may lead to short-term government gains. But in the long term, U.S. analysts say, the junta may actually become more vulnerable.

“Every time the regime has cracked down, the situation has calmed down for a few months,” the U.S. official said. “But it hasn’t marked a victory. All the Islamic opposition is really doing is laying low. After the offensive is over, they come back even stronger than they had been with a counteroffensive.”

Besides the hijacking, Islamic guerrillas are able to carry out frequent operations against military targets, including barracks, with impunity, U.S. officials say. As a result, the area outside government control is steadily growing.

Although the government holds Algiers, it is challenged even there. Most security forces do not venture beyond downtown because the Islamists control many of the capital’s neighborhoods, officials add.

In the provinces, the government rules only nominally. After dark, troops retreat into the safety of barracks and the Islamists take control, leading to public distinctions between the “government of the day” and the “government of the night.”

More ominous, the Armed Islamic Group, some of whose forces fought alongside Afghan guerrillas against Soviet troops, has increased grisly attacks on Algerian civilians, intellectuals and journalists, in contrast to the predominantly military targets of other Islamic guerrillas. The hijackers of the Air France jetliner were members of the Armed Islamic Group.

Zeroual has pledged presidential elections in 1995, although U.S. officials do not consider them likely. That promise “comes amid other indications of the growing influence of hard-liners in the military leadership who reject compromise with the opposition,” Robert H. Pelletreau Jr., assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, said in a speech last month.

Many U.S. officials and scholars expect that the “eradicators” in the military will sabotage any genuine effort at reconciliation by Zeroual, who is among those believed to favor a political accommodation.

U.S. officials deny French suspicions that Washington is preparing for a future Islamic regime. “The best hope for a solution which will guarantee Algeria’s internal peace and prospects, as well as its contribution to long-term regional stability, lies not in a strategy of repression but one of inclusion and reconciliation,’ Pelletreau said.

Specialists in the Administration now differ on the timing of a climax to the three-year civil war between the regime and Islamic guerrillas. Some believe a denouement is likely next year, in part because Algerian society can’t or won’t tolerate the soaring number of deaths.

Others predict a prolonged period of conflict and chaos, as in Afghanistan, stretching two or three years or longer.

Administration officials say even the best case is not good enough, a key reason for Administration activism. After the 1992 coup, the George Bush Administration reacted only with a statement “regretting” the suspension of democracy.

Among Western allies, the crisis in Africa’s third-largest country has long been a leading issue in Europe, particularly France. Several governments fear a mass migration across the Mediterranean if an Islamic government is installed.

In the first two years of the crisis, France and other Mediterranean countries helped the junta that overthrew reformist President Chadli Bendjedid when the Islamic front was poised to win Algeria’s first democratic parliamentary elections. And since 1992, the Mediterranean nations have provided financial aid, technical expertise and military equipment while encouraging business links.

But the leadership role has gradually shifted. “A number of European governments have begun to feel uncomfortable about the explicit French position--specifically assisting the regime and pushing it toward a harder-line approach,” the Administration source said.

Spain is the only European country that has moved significantly toward the U.S. position, although plans for a gas pipeline from Algeria to Spain are proceeding. Britain and Italy are inching closer, U.S. officials say.

The Administration is working to unify positions to prevent the kind of Western dissension that has been so destructive in Bosnia-Herzegovina. “There are no good solutions here, only bad ones,” the U.S. official said. “What we’re trying to do is avoid the worst one.”