Algerians shake off insurgents’ stranglehold of fear
By Lamine Chikhi
Reuters
AIT KOUFI, Algeria - The people in this village in Algeria’s mountainous Kabylie region
have for decades lived in fear of the Islamist insurgents who made it into their stronghold. Not any more.
When the rebels kidnapped a businessman from the village of Ait Koufi last month and demanded a 3 billion dinar ($4.2 million) ransom, hundreds of local people headed to the hills with loud-hailers to urge his captors to release him.
The hostage is still being held but for villagers, there was something bigger at stake.
“We were not armed, we just wanted to send a strong message to the rebels,” said Madjid, a 24-year-old villager, who did not want to give his full name. “Doing nothing will encourage the terrorists, and one day they will kidnap our women,” he said.
Algeria has for nearly two decades been gripped by conflict between Islamist militants and government forces
that at its peak in the 1990s killed about 200,000 people.
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