AMIR TAHERI:

Until just a few days ago, most policymakers and analysts in the West often cited Algeria as a successful example of dealing with Islamist terror through political means rather than the use of force. The idea is that accommodating the Islamists by offering them a share of political power while adopting part of their social agenda would temper their appetite for total domination.

The resurgence of terrorism, as witnessed in the recent series of attacks including a spectacular suicide operation that killed 30 people in the capital Algiers on Wednesday, casts doubt on the validity of that analysis.

For, during the past six years, President Abdulaziz Bouteflika has gone out of his way to accommodate the Islamists. He started by freeing thousands of militants, including hundreds with blood on their hand, from prison.

He continued with an amnesty that allowed thousands more to come out of the hiding and resettle in society, often with generous grants from the government. In some cases the government “compensated” the supposedly repenting terrorists for losses sustained while away doing the “jihad”.