ALGERIA, FEBRUARY 2ND OF 1992.

The Armed Forces of Algeria have finally completed seizing power by the end of January, with the military setting directives for sections and platoons to occupy certain sectors of Algiers and other key areas in order to displace the violent elements of Algeria, like MIA and other FIS loyalists. Dozens of workplaces, daily, are being searched for suspicious elements and contributions to radicalism - bearded men are once again being targeted for extremism and many have been forced to shave in order to work. The President, Mohamed Boudiaf, has been powerless to stop the insidious power-grabbing moves and the monopolization of government politics by the Government of Algeria.

The first crackdown that truly put the boot on the ground was Law 7368 of 1992, which dictates, specifically, that “radical elements and symbols of radicalization, including the party flags of FIS and MIA, the closing, for an undetermined amount of time, of mosques that profess loyalty or determination to radical elements of the society of the Democratic People’s Republic of Algeria, including but not limited to FIS and MIA.” Due to the fact that both FIS and MIA usually just utilize regular Islamic symbols, means that the law has been circumvented quite easily and has fallen to criticism among the populace for “censorship” and “authoritarianism”.

The MIA has utilized the opportunity to brand the current party as similar to the French ruling government, especially due to their infamous failure of Arabization and the utilization of Arab instead of French; with MIA and FIS sympathizers claiming that they will hire only those that utilized the Arabic language.

SCHOLARS AND DISCIPLES

There have been dozens of Islamic scholars, that support FIS and MIA, that have professed that jihad against the State is not only justified, but is the duty of every Muslim that currently resides in Algeria - taking clear inspiration from Abdullah Azzam’s writings and the exploits of the mujahideen in Afghanistan; along with Qutb’s writings, they have shaped the key concepts of the MIA and have helped ferment the key concepts of a certain faction from an insurgent group called the GIA, which is originated from the Jalalabad School of thought of returning Algerian fighters from Afghanistan. Their ideological contribution is, in essence, the dedication and desire to promulgate sectarian violence inside Algeria; within it, two different factions were emerging, the Qutbist-Azzamist Jihadism faction and the Khawarij Takfirism faction.

The ideological conflicts and the formation of different schools of thoughts was not solely reserved for the FIS, MIA and GIA however, as President Boudiaf and the Armed Forces too had diverging schools of thoughts based on their need to act against the FIS. Boudiaf was against military action and the Armed Forces believed that their main course of action had to be the absolute obliteration of these forces in order to guarantee a victory.

Boudiaf and the Military were arguing daily from February to April of 1992, all the while the government had inconclusive measures to be taken and firefights started to become a daily occurrence within the urban scenario; all the while, the entire landscape of the turmoil was slowly, but surely, starting to change from the FIS, GIA and MIA wanting to pressure the existing government to concede and to arrange a political negotiation, to these groups starting to overthrow the government and replace it by a new, Islamist nation.