Squad leaders today,village leaders tomorrow: Muslim auxiliaries and tactical politics in Algeria, 1956–1962

From 1956 to 1960, the French Army developed a force of Muslim auxiliaries (supplétifs) as a major component of its strategy to combat the National Liberation Front (FLN) insurgency in Algeria. Aside from their military utility in hunting down the guerrillas in the mountains and forests, the supplétifs were instrumental in undermining FLN legitimacy in the countryside. The rapid growth and employment of the supplétif force dismantled FLN political control in the villages, undermined the enemy's unity, and critically weakened the revolutionaries' claim to represent all of Algeria's Muslims. The military and political activities of France's Muslim soldiers also projected an image of Muslim–European unity behind the French cause, and portrayed the French Army as the only legitimate political force in numerous villages. These political successes, however, were limited to the local, tactical level of revolutionary warfare, and the Army was never able to convert the supplétifs into a force of decisive, strategic political significance. They thus had little ultimate impact on the outcome of the conflict.     

Making Jihad or Making Money? Understanding the Transformation of Dagestan’s Jamaats into Organised Crime Groups

While terrorist and insurgent groups have often combined anti-state subversion with ‘purely‘ criminal activities in order to obtain the financial means to wage their ideological struggle, little is known about the transformation of such groups into non-ideological organised crime groups (OCG) with close links to authorities. This holds particularly for jihadist groups that have on ideological grounds ruled out collaboration with their archenemies – ‘infidels’ and ‘apostates’. Using unique ethnographic data from Russia’s Dagestan, this article explores the causes and contexts of the gradual transformation of some of Dagestan’s jihadist units – jamaats – into organised crime groups collaborating with local authorities.     

A Question of ‘Government’ Control: Afghanistan DDR Programs Since 2001

Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA), the United States, the United Nations, and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have funded and led three different Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programs. Despite a significant investment in time and treasure, all of them have failed to significantly reduce the number of insurgents or arbaki (militia). This article explores why these programs failed despite incorporating ideas from the prominent DDR schools of thought. Utilizing Stathis Kalyvas’ theory of The Logic of Violence in Civil War as a lens, this article argues that GIRoA and ISAF did not have sufficient control of territory to entice insurgents or arbaki to reconcile and/or reintegrate with the government. Further, in areas GIRoA nominally controlled in northern and western Afghanistan, regional powerbrokers who controlled these areas balked at these programs.