Protesters took to city streets across Algeria on April 2, with demonstrators rallying at locations throughout the country and calling for the fall of a regime they have come to see as having oppressed them for generations.

Their progress has been extraordinary and their achievements equally so. In opposition to a state backed by one of the largest militaries in the region, the mass protests, or Hirak, have forced unimaginable concessions from a government that has consistently prized stability above progress and continuity above change. However, now, in its third year, there is growing concern among the Hirak's ranks over the entry of the country's Islamists into the movement and, unfettered by domestic restrictions on internet usage, the dominant voice overseas Islamists are seeking to assume.

For a government keen to push the notion of early legislative elections, scheduled for June this year, as the panacea for many of the country's ills, the entry of the Islamists into their only principal opposition offers the possibilities of a strawman with which to discredit the protests. Already, in mid-March, an Algiers court issued arrest warrants for three overseas activists accused of attempting to turn the peaceful protests violent. Principal among the international warrants was that for London-based Mohamed Larbi Zitout, a former diplomat and founder of the banned Rachad party, known to include past members of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), an active participant in the decadelong civil war of the '90s.

"The Hirak itself remains largely the same," Zine Ghebouli, a political consultant specializing in Algerian affairs, told Al-Monitor. "That is, a representative movement that draws from all strands of political life in Algeria. What's changed is the entry of the Islamists and, even if there are only 10 of them in a crowd of, say, 10,000. It's that 10 that their social media accounts will make sure you see."