Fighting in the rugged Kabyle region east of Algiers, long considered an AQIM haven, followed military operations by Mauritanian Special Forces, backed by French commandos, in Mauritania and Mali in July that signaled a counter-terrorism offensive across the Sahara-Sahel region by North African states.

Algeria, the region's military heavyweight, is the driving force behind this rare display of regional unity.

It launched a military sweep July 21 that included heavy airstrikes against suspected AQIM bases across Tizi Ouzou and Bouira provinces. The Kabyle clashes were part of that operation.

The focal point in that regard is likely to be the remote Algerian air base at Tamanrasset deep in the Sahara, which appears to be the command center for the Algerian-led regional counter-terrorism operation launched in April.

That followed a summit of military chiefs from Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger at Tamanrasset. They were later joined by Libya, Chad and Burkina Faso.

The combat deployment of French Special Forces with the Mauritanians marks a more important strategic development.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared war on AQIM after militants beheaded a French captive, aid worker Michel Germaneau July 24.

That was in apparent retaliation for the French-Mauritanian raid July 22. That was widely perceived as an attempt to rescue Germaneau, 78, kidnapped April 22 in Niger by the jihadists' Touareg tribal allies.

The raid was the first counter-terrorism operation in northern Africa in which Western forces are known to have participated, signaling a new found determination by Western powers to go after the region's al-Qaida network.

AQIM, dominated by Algerian jihadists, is al-Qaida's only African franchise, although Somalia's Islamist al-Shebaab movement is linked to Osama bin Laden.

AQIM has been seeking to expand from Algeria to Mali, Niger, Senegal, Mauritania and Chad.

The French government said the July 22 raid, in which six militants were killed, was intended to thwart an imminent, but unspecified, AQIM attack against a West Africa nation, presumably Mauritania which has taken a hard line against the jihadists.

The French daily Liberation said the French troops had been on a mission in Mauritania for several months. The U.S. global security consultancy Stratfor says the raid was part of "a four-day French-backed offensive by Mauritanian troops against AQIM."

The French are ideally situated to bolster the regional powers in their unprecedented offensive against AQIM. France had military bases across its former African colonies where Sarkozy has been seeking to restore Paris' influence.

Sarkozy's willingness to deploy troops on active operations indicated that Paris is prepared to join the battle against bin Laden's North African franchise, which is seen a threat to regional security.

It remains to be seen how the French involvement will develop. But Sarkozy sent Special Forces to fight Somalia pirates in the Gulf of Aden, after they seized French citizens, taking those they captured back to France for trial.

"France is one of the few countries with the capacity -- and will -- to conduct military operations in Africa (however limited) when its security is provoked." Stratfor said.

France, it said, has major commercial interests that are "particularly acute in West Africa," a region that is becoming a major oil producer.

"That territory is vital to the French economy, since beneath the sand of Niger lies the source of 40 percent of France's uranium consumption, set to substantially increase in the current decade as new mining projects come online.

"While AQIM has not threatened uranium production in the past, the roaming Tuareg nomads have. The two may not share an ideological affinity, but they have worked together to share resources …

"Considering that France relies on nuclear energy for nearly 80 percent of its electricity, the Sahel region is arguably more important to France than the Persian Gulf region is to the United States," Stratfor noted.

Algeria, which won independence from France in 1962 after a 6-year war that included many atrocities, has shunned French participation in the anti-militant campaign and such regional sensitivities could be a problem.

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