North Africa: Is this al-Qaida resurgent?: U.S. terrorism specialist Bruce Reidel, a former CIA officer, says the battles against jihadists in Mali and Algeria mark "the emergence of the third generation" of al-Qaida that "could prove to be the most deadly al-Qaida yet."
But other Western analysts suspect U.S. neoconservatives are hyping the jihadist threat in North Africa to prod the U.S. administration into a new war against terror in Africa even though that could backfire.
The North African crisis centers on an Islamist alliance that seized control of northern Mali in April after turning on its erstwhile Tuareg allies who sought an independent state.
