Algeria, which is one of the few countries in the world to pay a high price for terrorism, is taking its initiative to criminalize the payment of ransoms beyond its borders.

This resolution is in response to the need to cut off the sources of financing for the different terrorist groups that foment trouble and terror in the four corners of the world. More than 200,000 people have lost their lives in this North African country since the terrorism here started in 1992. In Africa, this devastating phenomenon is taking hold more and more, especially in the sub-region of the Sahel where it has a solid base. Local populations, at least for many of them, easily give in to the narrowing socioeconomic noose. This is how they are recruited, in exchange for financial compensation, by armed Islamist groups who make them their main base.

Algeria is next-door neighbors with all of this and the local authorities are keeping their eye on the tiniest grain (of sand). It shares several thousands of kilometers with this geographic space run by those loyal to al-Qaeda. It is preoccupied with the ever-narrower connection between terrorism and organized and transnational crime. This translated recently into the desire of international authorities to adopt the Algerian approach that makes this North African nation rise in the ranks of international politics.

Within this context, the advisor to the president of the republic, Kamel Rezzag Bara, was ecstatic this week on the airwaves Algerian radio Channel III about the desire of the UN Security Council to fight against the payment of ransoms in hostage situations. He sees in this a victory that reinforces the steps that had already been taken since Algeria launched its initiative to criminalize the payment of ransoms to terrorist groups four years ago.