Religion in Algeria
Those measures, however, did not satisfy everyone. As early as 1964, a militant Islamic movement, called Al Qiyam (values), emerged and became the precursor of the Islamic Salvation Front of the 1990s. Al Qiyam called for a more dominant role for Islam in Algeria's legal and political systems and opposed what it saw as Western practices in the social and cultural life of Algerians.This proved to be the most difficult challenge for the immediate post-independent regimes as they tried to incorporate an Islamic national identity alongside socialist policies. Whereas the new leaders of Algeria saw Islam and Socialism as both compatible and features of Algerian culture and society; radical Islamists saw Islam as the only defining characteristic and in fact incompatible.
Ba'ath Party (Iraqi-dominated faction)
The party branch in Algeria, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Algeria ( "Hizb Al-Ba'ath Al-'Arabi Al-Ishtiraki fi Al-Jaza'ir"; French: "Parti Baath arabe socialiste d'Algérie"), is led by Ahmed Choutri (secretary of the Regional Command). The party is banned and Choutri was forced to flee to Iraq during the 1990s because of governmental repression against the Algerian Ba'ath movement. The party sympathises with the Iraqi ba'athist insurgency and supports Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, leader of the Iraqi branch. Following his return to Algeria in 2003, Choutri wrote "The Baathist Faith of President Saddam".