The first time the members of al-Qaeda emerged from the forest here,they politely said hello. Then the men carrying automatic weapons asked the frightened villagers if they could please take water from the well. Before leaving,they rolled down the windows of their pickup truck and called over the children to give them chocolate. That was 18 months ago,and since then,the bearded men in tunics like those worn by Osama bin Laden have returned for water every week. Each time they go to lengths to exchange greetings,ask for permission and act neighbourly,according to locals,in the first intimate look at how al-Qaeda tries to win over a village. Besides candy,the men hand out cash. If a child is born,they bring baby clothes. If someone is ill,they provide medicines. When a boy was hospitalised,they dropped off plates of food. With almost no resistance,al-Qaeda has implanted itself in Africa,choosing as its host one of the poorest nations on earth. The terrorist group has created a refuge in this remote land through a strategy of winning hearts and minds,described in rare detail by seven locals in regular contact with the cell. The villagers agreed to speak for the first time to an AP team in the red zone, deemed by embassies to be too dangerous for foreigners to visit. While al-Qaedas central command is in disarray and its leaders on the run following bin Ladens death six months ago,security experts say,the groups 5-year-old branch in Africa is flourishing. From bases like the one in the forest just north of here,al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,or AQIM,is infiltrating local communities,recruiting fighters,running training camps and planning suicide attacks,according to diplomats and government officials. Even as the mother franchise struggles financially,its African offshoot has raised an estimated $130 million in under a decade by kidnapping at least 50 Westerners in neighbouring countries and holding them in camps in Mali. It has tripled in size from 100 combatants in 2006 to at least 300 today,say experts. And its growing footprint,once limited to Algeria,now stretches from Mauritania in the west to Mali in the east.
