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  • May Algerie monthly report (4/4)

    Security

    After a period of several months in which its presence in the north of Algeria appeared to be waning, Aqmi’s activity picked up notably in late April and early May. The last week of April was the busiest in terms of jihadist activity since early July 2012, and the whole month was the busiest since August 2012. Fourteen jihadist operations were recorded in April (up from seven in March, seven in February and eight in January) and six in the first half of May. The security forces initially lagged behind, with only seven operations reported in April (comparable to March) but appear to have stepped up their efforts in May, with eight operations recorded in the first half of the month.
    ALGIERS and its environs remained quiet. The most noteworthy incidents in northern Algeria took place in the WEST[8]. During the night of April 20-21, a jihadist group attacked a convoy of Italian staff heading to a work site near Theniet el-Had, between the wilayas of Aïn Defla and Tissemsilt. The attackers first shelled the convoy with home-made mortars (heb heb) and then attacked directly, but the gendarmes escorting the convoy fired back and repulsed them, according to London-based According to Al-Qods Al-Arabi. It is believed the jihadists were trying to kidnap the Italian staff. Three gendarmes were wounded in the operation but none of the foreign nationals were hurt[9]. Also of note was the arrest by the security forces two jihadists in the town of Chlef on May 3, one of whom was found to be carrying a suicide belt according to the Algerian press – an indication that suicide bombings remain a possibility in the north of country, despite a lull in the use of this tactic. 
    The oil and gas producing regions of the SOUTH saw at least three incidents. On April 24 armed men attacked a civil engineering team working on the road between Hassi Messaoud and El-Oued and made away with an offroader. A force of gendarmes chased the assailants, forcing them to abandon the vehicle, according to the Algerian press. The recurrent carjackings and acts of brigandry around Hassi Messaoud notably indicate security is still not optimal in the region (El Watan on May 11 published a long article on “exceptional security measures” in the town, but a close reading shows these are aimed mostly at angry local protesters calling for jobs, not against jihadist activity). Near In Amenas, wilaya of Illizi, the security forces arrested a group of “Libyan terrorists” driving an offroader, Algeria’s privately owned Ennahar TV claimed on May 8 (the station did not give the exact date or any further details on the incident). Two other Libyans travelling in a 4WD vehicle were arrested by the Algerian security forces inside Algerian territory near Debdeb, wilaya of Illizi, on or around May 17. They were found to be carrying Kalashnikovs and satellite phones. On May 21, a group of around 15 terrorists is reported to have attacked a convoy of gendarmes escorting a prisoner transport in the wilaya of Illizi (L’Expression 22/05). Several gendarmes were wounded, one seriously, but none of the prisoners, all held on terrorism charges, were freed. The authorities suspect AQMI-offshoot MUJAO of being behind the failed operation, according to L’Expression (which did not specify the exact location of the incident). 
    Elsewhere in the south, an Algerian army position near Tinzaouatin, wilaya of Tamanrasset, on the border with Mali, was hit by “rocket shells” from Mali on April 25 and riposted by shelling over the border. El-Khabar (27/04) reported that the attack was the work of “jihadist groups” and had “nothing to do with French or Chadian forces in northern Mali”. Two days later, the army killed two “armed men” who were trying to cross into Algeria from Mali near Tinzaouatin (El-Khabar 28/04). On the border with Libya, the Algerian army clashed with a jihadist group near Djanet, wilaya of Illizi, on April 26, an operation that left two jihadists dead and two soldiers wounded according to El-Khabar (27/04), while Echorouk reported that the operation started when Algerian army surveillance aircraft spotted a convoy of four offroaders with armed men on board that tried to cross into Algerian territory from Libya. The Algerian press also reported that a “heavily armed group” attacked and robbed the post office at Bordj Baji Mokhtar (wilaya of Adrar) on May 13 and “fled over the border into Mali”, although the next day the Gendarmerie issued a statement describing the event as a “criminal robbery” and ruling out “any terrorist involvement”.

    [1] The nom-de-guerre of DRS chief Lt-Gen. Mohamed Médiène.

    [2] This is, however, dismissed by another source with close knowledge of the workings of the DRS, who argues that Tewfik, having received his formative training from the KGB in the Soviet Union, has as his model the founder of the Cheka (the KGB’s forerunner) Felix Dzerzhinsky, who worked on through years of illness and died of a heart attack after delivering a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

    [3] Publication was blocked by the authorities at the last minute, and the papers’ proprietor Hichem Aboud has reportedly been charged with “harming state security”. Aboud, who was once editor in chief of theArmy’s mouthpiece El Djeïch, is thought to have ties to the DRS and/or sections of the military hierarchy.

    [4] In 2012, Gen. Tahar Yala issued at least two statements in the name of his new organisation and gave a number of interviews in which he called for “radical change” but did not hold forth at length on the theme of corruption and carefully avoided attacking Bouteflika personally.

    [5] Although Gen. Tahar Yala does not suggest it explicitly, one option might be impeachment under article 88 of the constitution, which allows for a sitting head of state to be removed on grounds of “serious and lasting illness”. This possibility has been floated in the last few days by dissident human rights lawyer Ali Yahia Abdenour.

    [6] “The security of [Tunisia and Libya] is a matter for those countries. I will not comment. We secure our borders from within.” There is no infiltration of terrorists from these countries, and “even if there are one or two, they are arrested very swiftly. The Tiguentourine incident will not happen again.”

    [7] Back in December, Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia visited Tunis for talks on security and border issues, while Algerian Gendarmerie Commander Maj-Gen. Ahmed Boustila inspected new installations and units along the border with Tunisia (16 new advanced posts for the border guards, seven new intervention squads and an air squadron).

    [8] Although most of north-west Algeria has been largely free of jihadist a
    ctivity for several years, small groups remain active in the wilayas of Ain Defla, Chlef and Tipaza, responsible for one or two incidents every month.

    [9] This incident was not was not reported this way in mainstream Algerian press. El-Watan (21/04) reported an APS story that “three gendarmes were wounded on April 21 by a roadside bomb explosion near Theniet el-Had”. No mention at all of foreign nationals. El-Khabar (22/04) reported “roadside bomb hits escort of foreign workers”, without giving details of the nature of the attack or the nationality of the foreign workers.

    Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel
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    The Gabriel Company, LLC
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  • May Algerie monthly report (3/4)

    Foreign Relations

    Algeria has tightened security on its western border with Morocco, establishing 24 new monitoring points to combat smuggling of subsidised food products and fuel, Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia announced at a press conference on May 13. Ould Kablia slammed what he termed the “passivity” of the Moroccan authorities with regard to cross-border smuggling:
    We are doubly penalized. The smugglers take fuel out of the country and bring drugs in. We are forced to import fuel oil, pending the launch of the four new refineries [that are planned]. […] I raised this issue with my Moroccan counterpart. I told him that if the Moroccan authorities do not make an effort, things will not move forward.
    While the new anti-smuggling measures undoubtedly do constitute a response (albeit an inadequate one) to a very real problem, Ould Kablia’s public grumbling about the attitude of the Moroccan authorities may also be in part politically motivated. As we noted in our last report, the Bouteflika camp, of which Ould Kablia is a key member, has every interest in amplifying traditional points of discord between Algeria and Morocco in order to prevent the question of inter-Maghreb relations and normalisation with Rabat gaining any traction in the run-up the 2014 presidential election. In a telling contrast, at the same press conference Ould Kablia tended to downplay problems on the borders with Libya and Tunisia[6].
    The danger to the east is, however, far greater. Indeed, Algeria’s border with Morocco is in most respects its least troublesome frontier these days, the perennial problem of smuggling notwithstanding. The French-led military intervention in northern Mali has pushed AQMI and its allies right up to the Malian-Algerian border, where incursions and clashes have been frequent. The 1,000 km long border with Libya has theoretically been closed since the war of 2011, but it remains impossible to shut the jihadists out entirely, even after security was supposedly enhanced in the wake of the In Amenas attack. And now the situation in north-west Tunisia is taking a turn for the worse, prompting the Algerian authorities to close the border with Tunisia too.
    Back in December of last year, armed islamists clashed with the Tunisian gendarmerie in Djebel Chaambi, near Kasserine, close to the Algerian border, killing one gendarme and wounding three others. Eleven days later, the Tunisian Interior Minister announced that a training camp “run by three Algerians close to AQMI leader Abou Mossaâb Abdelouadoud” had been discovered in the area; some 16 armed islamists, among them three Libyans, had been arrested, and another 18 were still at large. The jihadist groups were not stamped out, however, and in late April the Tunisian military began a more concerted campaign against the armed groups in Djebel Chaambi and a smaller group further north in Djebel Salloum, also situated along the border. More than a dozen members of the Tunisian national guard and army were wounded, some of them severely, in the first half of May by landmines laid by the group to protect their encampments. 
    Publicly, Tunisian officials say the Djebel Chaambi group numbers no more than 20, a good half of them Algerian. Speaking to us in private, a Tunisian government security official estimated the number of terrorists in the Djebel Chaambi area at “200 individuals of various nationalities, but mostly from northern Mali and Libya”. Tunisian officials have suggested that the armed groups want to use the heavily wooded and inaccessible borderlands as a base for attacks elsewhere, perhaps on targets in Algeria, and although there has been no official confirmation that jihadist groups in north-west Tunisia have launched cross-border raids, it is worth recalling an unusual incident in the north-eastern Algerian wilaya of Khenchela in February, in which by some accounts as many as 50 jihadists, “most of them Tunisians and Libyans”, attempted to storm an Algerian army camp. 
    At the end of April, Gen. Rachid Ammar, chief of staff of the Tunisian armed forces, accompanied PM Ali Laarayedh on a visit to Algiers, during which they met with Gen. Ammar’s opposite number, Lt-Gen. Ahmed Gaïd-Saleh. Flowing from this, a direct line of communication between ground and air operations in Algeria and Tunisia was reportedly set up to facilitate the exchange of information between the security services, while the Algerians presented their plans for expanded aerial surveillance along their eastern border to prevent the infiltration of armed groups as well as weapons smuggling across Tunisia from Libya[7]. By mid-May, the Algerian army had reportedly deployed more than 6,000 troops on the Tunisian border (eight brigades of regular troops and special forces).
    The Tunisian government security official quoted above argues that what the Tunisian and Algerian armies are fighting in north-west Tunisia is:
    the military wing of a broader Salafist-Jihadist movement spanning Tunisian mosques, whose membership is estimated at 35,000 to 40,000. […] In addition to their base camps in the mountains, their activities include recruitment, propaganda and fundraising in mosques. We are in a situation similar to that of Algeria in the early 90s — except that Tunisia is ill prepared to deal with it. Security officials have asked their political superiors to activate the security treaty signed with Algeria in 1983 and the Algerians have replied favourably. They closed their borders and put their intelligence resources (human and technological) at Tunisia’s disposal, but that appears to be insufficient and there is a request underway for Algeria to extend the terms of the 1983 treaty to include cooperation in personnel and materiel. To put it bluntly, we want the Algerians to send us units and equipment to control the whole mountainous border area. The Tunisian army lacks the necessary equipment (anti-mine gear, night-vision, infrared sights, etc), and what it has is old and not serviceable. As soon as the Algerians take charge of the border areas, Tunisian army and security forces units will take care of Salafist-Jihadists inside the country. In addition to the shortage of equipment, Tunisian forces are hampered by a wobbly political class and the lack of a firm grip on domestic threats. It is likely the jihadists will seek revenge for the army’s operations in Djebel Chaambi by carrying out attacks in the cities. The political class and civil society organisations appear to underestimate the threat. 
    If such pessimistic forecasts to the east are even partly confirmed, sections of the Algerian establishment – and notably of the military – are likely to find themselves all the more inclined to appreciate the relative stability of their western neighbour in the coming period.

  • May Algerie monthly report (2/4)

    Political Trends

    On April 27, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was airlifted to the Val de Grâce military hospital in Paris after suffering a “transient ischemia” – a temporary blockage of a blood vessel often called a mini-stroke. “The President is in very good health,” his doctor Rachid Bougherbal told the press after the news was announced, adding that the President would return to Algiers “in not more than seven days.” Almost four weeks later, there has still been no sign of Bouteflika and only the scantest of official communications about his condition, and speculation about his real state of health and its political consequences is mounting to fever pitch. 
    One of the earliest rumours had to do with the causes of the President’s cerbrovascular accident. On the very day of his evacuation to Paris, Le Quotidien d’Oran ran a report, widely taken up by other Algerian media, quoting “certain sources close to the presidential circle” as claiming that the stroke occurred after Bouteflika learnt that his influential brother Saïd had been implicated in corruption scandals currently being investigated by the DRS intelligence and security service, forcing the President to dismiss him as an advisor. This story may well be apocryphal – we have had no confirmation from sources at the Presidency that Saïd Bouteflika has been sacked, and an Algerian businessman with family ties to the nomenklatura has expressed doubt that the President would even be capable of such a move, such is the “fusional” relationship between the two brothers – but it is symptomatic of the tense climate generated by the corruption investigations and of the uncertainty that they are generating.
    In our last report, we noted claims in specialist newsletter Maghreb Confidentiel to the effect that Maj-Gen. Bachir Tartag, head of internal security at the DRS, had deliberately orchestrated the corruption investigations in order to “smash the fragile peace between his boss Tewfik[1] and the head of state, cause the Bouteflika clan to implode and prevent the President from running for a fourth term in 2014”. In the absence of confirmation from other sources, we suggested that such claims were nonetheless worth monitoring and testing against the facts as they unfolded. Evidence has since been mounting that the corruption investigations are indeed closely linked to the succession question.
    At least two sources have, over the past month, suggested that – contrary to the 2009-10 crackdown on graft, which appears to have been driven by Bouteflika himself – this time the anti-corruption campaign is very much driven by the DRS. According to a project manager at Sonatrach who has had contact with current and former DRS officers involved in the corruption investigations:
    The DRS says it is concerned about foreign investigations into Algerian affairs: the FBI has opened a preliminary investigation, the British suspect a BVI-registered subsidiary of Sonatrach of tax fraud, the Canadians have begun proceedings against SNC-Lavalin for corruption in its contracts with Sonatrach. But the DRS’ concern is only a pretext, the aim of which is to demonstrate to Bouteflika and his entourage the need to launch a wide-ranging inquiry targeting people close to the President, which could affect him personally. The DRS has been piling on the pressure, instrumentalising this inquiry and the fight against corruption in general to settle two fast-approaching successions: Bouteflika’s and Tewfik’s. For this reason, the inquiry has become a major issue for the DRS. 
    An official at El Mouradia presidential palace adds further detail to the picture:
    Contrary to what has been said in some quarters, Tartag has been chosen by Tewfik, against Bouteflika’s will, as his successor at the head of the DRS.
    The Presidency is mobilising all its resources to keep track of the investigation into corruption at Sonatrach. The DRS has been putting out some worrying signals, and the Presidency is not being kept informed of how the investigation is proceeding. The President is being kept out of the loop, supposedly so as to “spare” him. Aside from the President himself, the DRS is eavesdropping on everybody at the Presidency, where the atmosphere has been toxic since December. 
    Given the prevailing mood in relations between the Presidency and the DRS due to the tug-of-war over the succesion, corruption investigations could go on for months. Tewfik has put people who are close to him in charge of these investigations: aside from Tartag, you also have Generals Gobrini and Djebbar. Virtually all the top brass of the DRS are taken up with the succession question, and the corruption investigations are one symptom of this amongst others. Tewfik’s men want to use these investigations to raise the pressure and force Bouteflika to submit to their will: no fourth term. Tewfik has said that “we’ll settle Bouteflika’s succession first”, implying that he himself will also go once he has taken care of Bouteflika’s succesion. 
    There are at least four points that are worth drawing out of this. Firstly, it would appear that, while he is certainly involved in overseeing the corruption investigations as head of the Directorate of Internal Security, Gen. Tartag is neither the sole driver of the campaign nor acting against Tewfik, but with him. Secondly, the sources seem to believe that Tewfik, who is now 72 and whose health may no longer be what it was, is contemplating his own departure at some point in the future[2]. Thirdly, for the first time in years, it is seriously suggested that Tewfik is not acting in tandem with Bouteflika. And finally, the corruption investigations have a clear political objective: to make it impossible for Bouteflika to stand for a fourth successive term of office.
    In mid-April, it will be recalled, a source with access to both Bouteflika and Tewfik suggested guardedly that Bouteflika had, after months of hesitation, finally made up his mind to stand for a fourth term, while remaining coy as to other players’ stances on this decision. The matter may now have been settled by Bouteflika’s health issues, however. Over the past week, press reports have been increasingly pessimistic: on May 17, French newsmagazine Le Point quoted “concordant” Algerian and French sources as suggesting that the President’s condition
    when he was admitted to Val-de-Grâce was far worse than stated in the official announcement and that “certain vital functions are badly affected”, and on May 19, Algerian French-language daily Mon Journal and its Arabic-language sister publication Jaridati claimed that Boutflika, suffering from cancer as well as immunodeficiency and metabolic problems, had been secretly flown back to Algeria in a coma four days previously[3]. On May 21, French daily Le Parisien quoted a member of the French government as saying that Bouteflika had been transferred from Val-de-Grâce to the Institution Nationale des Invalides, another French military hospital that specialises in treating the war-wounded and the severely handicapped, for “convalescence” (which was later partially confirmed by the French Defence Ministry). 
    To be sure, the official version – as expressed by Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and presidential advisor Farouk Ksentini – remains that Bouteflika the President, “whose life was never in danger and whose health is improving day by day” is resting at his doctors’ insistence but nonetheless “continues to follow the daily operations of government, pending his return to continue his mission in the service of Algeria and the nation”. This is essentially the same line as we had been given, in private, by a staffer at El Mouradia presidential palace since the beginning of Bouteflika’s hospitalisation: the President had suffered a very minor stroke which was by no means life-threatening and had been promptly dealt with, and had been told to rest by his doctors; speaking to us again on May 15, the same source claimed that Bouteflika had made a full recovery and had been due to return that very day, but had postponed “for 24 hours” (the source ventured no explanation for this). But the longer Bouteflika’s return is postponed, the less convincing such reassurances sound.
    Thus, even if Bouteflika is not physically dying, his political death seems increasingly probable. It is telling that – in contrast with his previous hospitalisation at Val-de-Grâce in November 2005 (for a bleeding ulcer), when gushing messages wishing him a speedy recovery and a swift return to his position at the helm of the state were de rigueur for almost all mainstream politicians and parties – Algeria’s political class, and in particular the two main government parties, the RND and the FLN, have this time remained entirely silent throughout his hospitalisation. As if uncertain of what is expected of them, party leaders have been refusing to make the slightest comment on the matter to the press. This is far from the reaction one might have expected had the fourth term been a ‘done deal’ within the ruling establishment. Even more explicitly, former Navy Commander Gen. Mohand Tahar Yala, who last year founded a political grouping he calls the Citizenship Movement, on May 19 penned a violent attack on Bouteflika that was published by Algerian daily El Watan and news portal Algérie Focus, in which he accuses the President of “high treason” for his role in establishing a “predatory” system of corruption that has wasted and pillaged Algeria’s wealth[4] and calls for him to be removed from office immediately[5]. 
    If, on the other hand, Bouteflika’s condition really is as bad as has been suggested, the ruling establishment – and in particular Tewfik and the other senior officers of the DRS, together perhaps with the tops of the military – will have had time to prepare for his disappearance and deal with its consequences. Indeed, if our sources are correct when they suggest that the DRS top brass have been actively striving to prevent Bouteflika running for a fourth term, the most awkward scenario for Tewfik et al might, paradoxically, be for Bouteflika to make a full recovery as promised and return in fighting form.

  • May Algerie monthly situation report (1/4)

     

    ALGERIA MONTHLY SITUATION REPORT

    Executive Summary

    Political Trends

    ·     Almost a month after he was airlifted to Paris for treatment following a “minor stroke”, there has been no sign of President Bouteflika and speculation as to his condition is rising to fever pitch.

    ·      Bouteflika’s health problems come just as he had made up his mind to run for a fourth successive term of office next year.

    ·      Concordant sources suggest that one of the main aims of the corruption investigations, which are being driven by the DRS, is to prevent Bouteflika from running for a fourth term.

    ·     The question of the fourth term may have been laid to rest by the President’s health problems; paradoxically, the situation may become more complicated if Bouteflika were to make a full recovery and return in fighting form .

    Foreign Relations

    ·     Interior Minister Ould Kablia has announced new security measures along the border with Morocco, and complained bitterly of the Moroccan authorities’ lack of cooperation in combatting smuggling.

    ·      Inclined for domestic political reasons to talk up problems on the border with Morocco, Ould Kablia has tended to downplay far greater threats on Algeria’s eastern borders.

    ·      As they move against jihadist groups in the mountains along the border with Algeria, the Tunisian authorities are appealing for ever greater military assistance from the Algerians.

    ·     A Tunisian security official draws a pessimistic prognosis for the situation in Tunisia, which is compared to Algeria in the early ’90s.

    Security

    ·     Jihadist activity nationwide accelerated markedly in April and early May, with security operations lagging somewhat behind them. There were no incidents in Algiers, however.

    ·      A convoy of Italian expatriate workers has been ambushed in north-west Algeria in what may have been a kidnapping attempt, although none were taken hostage or wounded.

    ·      Repeated acts of car-jacking and brigandry in the Hassi Messaoud area indicate that security is still not optimal around Algeria’s oldest oil hub.

    ·     There have been a number of incursions in the south-eastern oil province of Illizi by small groups of armed men from Libya, including one near In Amenas, and a failed attack on a security  forces convoy transporting jihadist prisoners in the same province.

  • March Algerie monthly report (4/4)

    Security

    Political violence in February was markedly one-sided. The security forces kept up a steady rate of ambushes targeting small groups of jihadists in Kabylia and to a lesser extent other parts of the country[5], while AQMI remained for the most part passive. Overall, the jihadist group took the initiative in only around a third of the 22 incidents recorded in February[6].
    One significant exception to AQMI’s pattern of passivity came early in the month, when a group of “several jihadists” attacked a military camp near Boudoukhan in the wilaya of Khenchela, in the east of the country, on February 5. The group, dressed in military uniforms, commandeered a vehicle used to supply the camp and tried to use it as a “Trojan horse” to infiltrate the facility, provoking a three-hour battle in which at least one jihadist was killed and an unspecified number of soldiers wounded. The army immediately launched a major search and destroy mission in the area to track the group, using helicopter gunships and even jet fighters according to press accounts, and the following day freed a hostage (believed to be the driver of the hijacked vehicle) the attackers had taken with them in their flight. Initial press reports claimed that there had been as many as 50 attackers, “most of them Tunisians and Libyans”[7]; the Algerian Defence Ministry officially denied this in a statement on Feb. 8, saying there no more than “eight criminals” involved. 
    There was also an unusual report of an attempted suicide-bombing in the capital, Algiers, which has not seen any incidents of political violence for a number of years. According to Arabic-language daily Echorouk (Feb. 28), the security forces, expecting terrorist acts against French interests in the capital following France’s military intervention in Mali, tightened their surveillance of jihadist activity and towards the end of February discovered a plot to suicide-bomb a “civil security centre” in the Bab el-Oued district; when apprehended in a mosque the would-be bomber “was already wearing his suicide belt”, but the security forces “managed to immobilise him” before he could detonate it, claimed the daily. 
    Although this story should be viewed with some caution (Echorouk, which has a tendency to sensationalism and cannot be considered an entirely reliable news source, was the only newspaper to carry it), the reference to the potential threat to French interests in connection with the war in Mali does nonetheless raise the serious question of whether and how AQMI in northern Algeria will take part in the “revenge” operations promised by Mokhtar Belmokhtar following the bloody denouement of the In Amenas siege, and more broadly in supporting its comrades-in-arms who are battling French and allied African forces in the Malian Sahara. Documents allegedly found in Timbuktu after it was taken back from the jihadists in late January[8] indicate that ties between AQMI’s two branches — the Kabylia-based arm which comprises the central leadership and the Saharan branch in northern Mali — are closer than seemed to be the case, with AQMI’s national emir Abdelmalek Droukdel (a.k.a. Abou Mosab Abdelwadoud) effectively laying down the line for the southern branch. And yet, two months after the beginning of France’s Operation Serval in northern Mali, AQMI in northern Algeria has largely kept quiet, or even reduced its activity. This may be due to pressure from the security forces, pre-emptively stepping up their harassment of jihadists in the north of Algeria with constant search and destroy missions and ambushes of isolated jihadists, and/or the effects of harsh winter weather on AQMI’s depleted forces. However, AQMI theoretically still has the option of suicide bombings, which are more difficult to prevent by means of classic military operations, and it cannot be entirely ruled out that the French war in Mali might provides the context for a suicide strike against French interests or symbols of the Algerian state and military in northern Algeria. 
    In the oil producing regions of the south, there was one minor incident on February 2, when a group of armed men “believed to be bandits” hijacked a 4WD vehicle belonging to an Italian company “working in the oil industry”. The assailants beat up the occupants of the car — none of them expats — and held them hostage for some time before letting them go and making away with the car. The fact that armed men on pick-up trucks could still roam the areas around Hassi Messaoud suggests that security of Algeria’s oil and gas sites was still not optimal more than a fortnight after the In Amenas incident. There have since been reports that the security forces have beefed up their presence beyond the perimeters of oil and gas facilities and suggestions that foreign oil companies will no longer be allowed to employ local private security firms for facilities protection, in which role they are supposedly to be permanently replaced by the army. On Feb. 20, Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi, speaking at a forum organised by government-owned daily Echaâb, indicated that the Ministry of Energy and Mining was still in discussions with the DRS and the army concerning the oil and gas industry’s security needs.
    Two incidents were reported on the borders with Libya. On February 16 the security forces detected an off-roader that was trying to cross into Algeria from Libya near In Amenas, wilaya of Illizi, and launched an operation to intercept it. Two “terrorists”, one Libyan and one Egyptian, and a third unidentified individual were killed in the operation. Echorouk (17/2) said these jihadists are believed to have fled from Mali to Libya with the beginning of the French intervention there. For its part, El-Khabar (28/2) reported that security forces had on Feb. 26 arrested four men in an off-roader as they tried to cross into Algeria from Libya near Djanet, also in the wilaya of Illizi. The vehicle bore no registration plates and the men, dressed in military uniforms, carried two machine guns. They claimed to have lost their way while on a hunting trip.
    Algeria’s southern border saw three incidents early February but no further clashes have been reported since Feb. 16[9]. On February 1 security forces intercepted an armed group travelling in three off-roaders as they tried to cross into Algeria from Niger near In Guezzam, in the south of the wilaya of Tamanrasset. Helicopter gunships were used in the operation. Two “terrorists” were killed and ammunition and a number of weapons and satellite phones recovered. On Feb. 8 the Algerian army “eliminated” two jihadists who were trying to cross the border with Niger in the south of the wilaya of Tamanrasset to “deliver a shipment” of weapons. They were found to be carrying machine guns and communications gear. On Feb. 11 El-Khabar said that security forces on February 9 intercepted three individuals smuggling weapons from Mali in the area between Tin Zaouatin and Bordj Baji Mokhtar. They were carrying machine guns and ammunition and “admitted working for Mujao[10]”. And on February 15, security forces, acting on intelligence, tracked and intercepted a jihadist group near Bordj Baji Mokhtar in the south of the wilaya of Adrar, on the border with Mali. After a “three-hour chase” the security forces killed four of the jihadists, believed to belong to Ansar Dine, and forced three others to flee into Mali. Five machine guns were recovered.
    In northern Mali, meanwhile, French and Chadian forces continue to battle jihadists in the Adrar des Ifoghas uplands, which run right up to the Algerian border where they merge into the foothills of the Hoggar. In late February it was reported that Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, emir of AQMI’s Katiba Tarek Ibn Ziad and one of the organisation’s top three commanders in Mali, was killed in a French air raid on or around February 25. A week later, Chadian sources claimed that their forces had killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, commander of AQMI’s Masked Men Brigade which carried out the In Amenas raid. French official sources say news of Abou Zeid’s death appears to be credible, pointing to posts on jihadist forums that admit he was “martyred”, but are more sceptical of reports of Belmokhtar’s death. 
    Meanwhile French military commanders say their forces fighting in the Adrar des Ifoghas have discovered “terrorism infrastructure on an industrial scale” in the area and weapons in very large quantities, including armoured vehicles, artillery pieces and other heavy weapons, but no manpads. According to a usually well-informed French journalist and defence analyst, French forces “have found no surface-air missiles in working condition” in the arsenal the jihadists left behind, and there have as yet been no reports of such weapons being used against French aviation in the conflict.
    END
    Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel
    President and CEO
    The Gabriel Company, LLC
    1220 L Street NW, Suite 411
    Washington DC, 20005
    Phone: +1 202.887.1113
    Fax: +1 202.887.1115
    [1] Cherdima, a particularly derogatory word in Algerian colloquial Arabic – which the Prime Minister’s spokesmen have since tried to deny he ever used.
    [2] Significantly, banners reading “national unity is a red line [not to be crossed]” were raised at the Ouargla demonstration on March 14.
    [3] Now being referred to as the ‘Sonatrach II case’. The first investigation into corruption at Sonatrach, which led to the conviction of the company’s CEO Mohamed Méziane and most of its top management, was launched in 2010.
    [4] Founded by Abdelmoumen Rafik Khalifa in 1998, El Khalifa Bank, one of the first private banks in Algeria, enjoyed a meteoric rise during Bouteflika’s first term of office thanks in part to its management of the accounts of several large, government-related institutional clients, before abruptly hitting a wall and going into liquidation. Having fled to London, Abelmoumen Khalifa was tried in absentia in 2007 along with over 100 other defendants and sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption, abuse of trust, forgery and criminal association. Widespread suspicions that he had been ‘covered’ for years by the regime and that members of Bouteflika’s entourage had profited directly or indirectly from embezzlement at his bank were swept under the carpet.
    [5] Seven incidents reported in AQMI’s Kabyle heartland in February; one in Algiers; five in the eastern wilayas of Batna, Tebessa and Khenchela; two in the western wilaya of Chlef; five in the south, mostly on the borders. 
    [6] So far in March five incidents all told, including two AQMI operations, have been registered.
    [7] Following the Algerian authorities’ assertion that as many as 11 of the In Amenas attackers were Tunisians, and in light of the ongoing instablility in Libya and Tunisia, rumours of Libyan and Tunisian nationals being involved in attacks in Algeria are likely to be a recurrent theme in Algerian media reporting over the coming period. It is not yet possible to state with any certainty, however, that Tunisian and Libyan fighters are present in any significant numbers in AQMI’s ranks in northern Algeria. 
    [8] Radio France International and French daily Libération (25/02/13) give an account of a document entitled ‘Roadmap relating to Islamic jihad in Azawad’, signed
    by Abdelmalek Droukdel and dated 20 July 2012, which summarises internal discussions about the way forward for AQMI in building an Islamic state northern Mali, managing its relations with Ansar Dine and the MNLA. A fortnight earlier, Britain’s Daily Telegraph (13/02/13) published what it claims were partial minutes of a meeting of AQMI’s leadership, held under the command of Droukdel on 18 March 2012, covering similar themes. 
    [9] With a war on the other side of the southern border which has already leaked into Algeria through its eastern border, there is clearly a big effort by the Algerian authorities to keep the borders, especially in the south, closed and keep infiltrators out. The relative lack of reporting since Feb. 16 does not necessarily mean a lack of incidents, since information appears to be controlled and some activity is likely not to be reported in the press.
    [10] The Movement for Unicity and Jihad in West Africa, a group which split off from AQMI’s southern units in mid-2011 but continues to work closely with its parent organisation.

  • March Algerie monthly report (3/4)

    Foreign Relations

    As France’s Operation Serval in northern Mali continues to unfold, fighting is increasingly concentrated in the Adrar des Ifoghas uplands north of Kidal to which AQMI and its allies had fallen back after their tactical retreat from the main towns in the early days of the French intervention. Consequently, French troops have taken control of the remote town of Tessalit, just 70 km from Algeria’s southern border, and are conducting operations in a mountain range that actually extends northwards into Algerian territory – uncomfortably close, from the Algerian point of view. With the jihadist groups under pressure from French air strikes and ground offensives by Chadian forces, this puts Algeria, and its armed forces in particular, in role of gatekeeper. It is in this context that French army general Henri Poncet (an Africa specialist who coincidentally was born in Oran) was quoted by French news magazine Marianne at the end of February as lauding in no uncertain terms Algeria’s “courageous” support for the French war effort. “At a time when the joint European defence effort is conspicuous by its absence, Algeria has turned out to be our best ally in our intervention in Mali,” opined the general, going on to argue that the time has come for Algeria and France “to march ahead together – History has just given us the opportunity to do so, by designating a common enemy.”
    Algiers’ position is not without ambiguity, however. After receiving Sergei Lavrov on Feb. 11, for example, President Bouteflika made no comments to the press himself, leaving the talking to the Russian Foreign Minister – who naturally seized the opportunity to restate Russia’s traditional opposition to outside (and especially Western) intervention in the affairs of sovereign states and to emphasise the harmony of views between Algiers and Moscow on the need for negotiated, “political and diplomatic” solutions to conflicts in countries “such as Mali and Syria”. In Mali, grumbled Lavrov, the French now found themselves fighting “the same people they armed in Libya”. Even though in reality Algeria, by force of circumstance, now has little choice but to collaborate with the French against AQMI and its allies, there can be little doubt that Algiers shares the view that what is now happening in Mali is in large part the consequence of former French President Sarkozy’s adventurism in Libya.
    The upheavals in Mali and Libya having creating immense problems for Algeria on its southern and eastern borders, the Algerian leadership has, as we indicated in our last report, expressed interest in acquiring advanced, US-made killer drones (specifically the MQ-9 Reaper) with which to patrol these vast and almost uncontrollable frontiers. However, it would appear that such efforts – be they directly with the US authorities or via the British – have led nowhere (perhaps unsurprisingly given the sensitive nature of the technology which has not even been made available as yet to the United States’ closest Arab allies in the Gulf). In the wake of this failure, the Algerian media has claimed that the first prototype Algerian-made drone, which has apparently been in development since President Bouteflika launched the idea during a visit to Ouargla in 2010, will be ready “by the end of this year”. There is no indication however that the future Algerian drone will be armed, and even if a prototype does fly before the end of 2013, mass production and deployment would still be a long way off, leaving the Algerian military dependent on other means for patrolling the vast desert badlands – and perhaps tempted to envisage closer cooperation with the US military’s newly established drone capability in neighbouring Niger.

  • March Algerie monthly report (2/4)

    Political Trends

    Lambasted in the press for failing to address the nation during or immediately after the In Amenas siege in January, President Bouteflika finally addressed the subject in a message to mark Algeria’s annual “martyr’s day” (commemorating those who died in the war of liberation) on Feb. 18. In his statement – which was published by the official media rather than being delivered as a speech – Bouteflika lauded 
    the commitment that inspired our brave soldiers in the great battle of In Amenas against the forces of evil and destruction [which] is the epitome of the legacy inherited from our martyrs [of the liberation war]. The heroes of this battle proved by their efficiency, precision, professionalism and triumph that they are the undisputed and indisputable successors of our brave martyrs and that the National People’s Army is truly a worthy successor to the National Liberation Army and the standard-bearer of victory and triumph in every battle engaged by the nation to protect its security, stability and sovereignty.
    In a clear allusion to the upheavals that have shaken the region since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, Bouteflika went on to call for “vigilance” and a reaffirmation of Algerian “love for the homeland and nationalism” in the face of 
    the deplorable events and developments occurring here and there and all around us in more than one Arab country, [which] irrespective of their outer aspects, demonstrate the seriousness of what is happening behind the scenes.
    A week later, another presidential statement – again, not delivered as a speech, but this time sent as a message to UGTA leader Abdelmadjid Sidi-Saïd on the occasion of the double anniversary of the founding of Algeria’s official trade union and the nationalisation of the oil and gas sector – was published in the official media. The President renewed his praise for the role played the army and other security forces at In Amenas, before neatly seguing into other issues of the day: 
    Our security is jeopardized by the situation in Mali on our southern border and the sporadic outbreaks of terrorism that we are constantly fighting. What happened recently in Amenas is an instructive illustration, in that it highlighted the cruelty of the terrorist groups, but also the know-how of our army and our security services, who put an end to this attack against one of the most important facilities in our country.
    I want to take this opportunity to pay a special tribute to the officers, soldiers and members of the security services and of the civil defence force, whose intervention earned our admiration and that of international public opinion.
    I bow also to the memory of the Algerian and foreign workers who lost their lives in this cowardly attack and I express our admiration and gratitude to those among them who, by their cool-headedness and courageousness, made it possible to save the installations and production facilities.
    In this connection, I cannot ignore the scandals that have recently been uncovered by the press concerning the management of Sonatrach. Such news can only inspire indignation and disapproval, but I have faith in our criminal justice system’s ability to unravel this tangled web, identify those responsible and mete out with thoroughness and firmness the punishments provided for under our legislation.
    Their hackneyed phraseology notwithstanding, both presidential messages are in fact replete with signals not only to the population at large but also to other players in the Algerian power structure. This urgent political semaphore comes amid two political squalls that have blown up, seemingly independently of one another, over the past month: an upsurge in agitation across the vast southern wilayas where Algeria’s oil and gas resources are located on the one hand, and the surprise return to prominence in the Algerian media (and to a degree also internationally) of a number of high-level corruption scandals that had seemed to have been swept definitively under the carpet after being partially dealt with during Bouteflika’s second and third terms of office. It remains to be seen whether these squalls will blow over, or whether they augur heavier storms to come. 
    Since the presidential election of 2004, in which a last-minute deal with DRS chief Lt-Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Médiène enabled him to outmanoeuvre the army chiefs, it had been largely plain sailing for President Bouteflika. With the once powerful heads of the army marginalised as political players, Bouteflika and Tewfik in effect ruled as a duumvirate, proving to be masters at the game of manipulating, dividing, co-opting and suborning the political parties and able for the most part simply to ignore the many spontaneous and localised outbreaks of social unrest that flared regularly in towns and villages across the country without ever finding a political voice or, still less, coming together into a single, united movement. To be sure, the regime was rattled for a time by the protests and rioting over soaring food prices that broke out in late 2010, coinciding with the Tunisian revolution, and the following months of upheavals across the Arab world, prompting Bouteflika’s April 2011 promise of extensive political and constitutional reform, but it soon became apparent that the fires of the Arab Spring had not taken in Algeria, and the regime returned largely to business as usual (the constitutional reform process has limped on, but with less and less enthusiasm from all concerned: Prime Minister Sellal, confirming earlier this month that the draft reform would be submitted first to parliament and then to a referendum, was unable to say whether this would be during the spring or autumn session of parliament and dropped not the slightest hint as to what it might actually contain). 
    Beneath the surface this otherwise tediously flat sea, however, hidden currents seem to have begun to move of late. Amid prolonged uncertainty as to whether or not Bouteflika intends to stand for a fourth term of office in 2014, one potential successor after another (former Prime Ministers Ahmed Ouyahia and Ali Benflis, Transport Minister
    Amar Ghoul, the present PM Abdelmalek Sellal) has bobbed up to the surface only to sink again for the most part almost without trace – suggesting a state of indecision or deadlock behind the scenes. In our last report, we quoted a source at the Presidency as hinting that Tewfik (who is thought to have earlier backed first Ouyahia and then Benflis as possible regime candidates in 2014) might no longer be the pivotal figure he once was. This came on the heels of suggestions from a former DRS officer that Tewfik had been unsettled by the fact that the West’s main interlocutor with Algeria on the situation in northern Mali is not him but Chief of Staff Maj-Gen. Ahmed Gaïd-Saleh. 
    Since then, there have been further suggestions – from private sources (notably an astute Algerian businessman close to sections of the military) and from the special envoy of Paris-based daily Le Monde – that the army has begun to re-emerge as a political player. The catalyst has been the French intervention against AQMI and its allies in northern Mali, which has thrust the Algerian military centre-stage – not only as the preferred interlocutor of the Western powers but also as the guardian of Algeria’s borders and, as seen at In Amenas, vital infrastructures. The Algerian businessman notes that, since France launched its ‘Operation Serval’ in northern Mali, members of the rising generation of officers in the Algerian military have begun to hold informal gatherings to discuss the situation (and no doubt other matters) – a practice that had ceased several years ago. A mid-ranking Spanish defence official, meanwhile, claims that the French intervention in Mali provoked a direct confrontation between President Bouteflika and the army: although the military chiefs were extremely reluctant to grant the French over-flight rights (insisting that permission to overfly Algerian territory be limited to logistical support aircraft rather than fighter aircraft, and that it be granted on a case-by-case basis) they were in the end overruled by the President who promptly granted the French what they wanted. 
    At the same time, the sudden rush of media and government attention for conditions in southern Algeria following the In Amenas siege seems to have acted as a stimulus to the socio-economic agitation across the southern wilayas. Protest movements by the unemployed and others are of course nothing new in southern cities such as Ouargla and Laghouat. But the In Amenas attack, by drawing attention to the social and political context in which it took place (due notably to reports that the attackers had been able to recruit a number of disaffected locals as informants or accomplices), has provided southern Algerians with an opportunity to air their grievances. The opportunity has been seized with enthusiasm: unemployed workers attempted to march to the oil hub of Hassi Messaoud to make their voice heard on the February 24 anniversary of the nationalisation of the oil and gas sector (only to be beaten back by police and gendarmes), workers in the education sector in all the southern wilayas launched a three-day strike as of February 25 over pay and working conditions and called on other sectors to follow their lead, and the National Committee for the Defence of the Rights of the Unemployed (CNDDC) called for an all-south demonstration in Ouargla on March 14 (at least 10,000 attended the protest, which this time was allowed to pass of peacefully). Marking the anniversary of nationalisation with a visit to In Amenas on Feb. 24, Prime Minsiter Abdelmalek Sellal and his ministers were taken to task by speaker after speaker at a meeting with notables and representatives of the local population over the social and economic marginalisation of the south; Sellal’s remarks, in which he gave voice to the regime’s fears of a “criminal gang[1]” of wreckers seeking to split the south away from the rest of Algeria, seem to have served only to further fuel the indignation of the protesters[2]. The government has since responded with a reshuffle of provincial governors that has brought new heads to six out of ten southern wilayas (including, for the first time, the appointment of a local man as Wali of Illizi), a programme to encourage small businesses, job creation and local recruitment in the south, and pledges to establish Sonatrach and Algérie Télécom training academies in various southern towns to develop local talent. It remains to be seen whether this will be sufficient to quell a movement which for the time being seems to be growing in confidence. 
    The attention to the south, and the protest movement there, appear also to have encouraged another former Prime Minister, Ahmed Benbitour, who hails from the southern wilaya of Ghardaia, to declare his intention of standing for President in 2014. Benbitour was the first prime minister appointed by Bouteflika after he came to power in 1999 but served for less than a year before falling out with the head of state over economic policy; somewhat later, at a time of tension between the President and the military chiefs, he seems briefly to have been considered by some within the army as a potential alternative to Bouteflika in the 2004 presidential election. Whether or not Benbitour is being actively encouraged this time round by elements within the establishment, he has latched on to the other political hot potato of the moment, namely the corruption scandals surrounding the Bouteflika presidency – a theme which was extensively used by Bouteflika’s opponents within the power structure in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, when compromising details were drip-fed to the press by insiders over a period of months.
    Since the second week of February, when Milan prosecutors announced that they had put ENI head Paolo Scaroni under investigation in a probe into alleged bribes paid to win contracts in Algeria for ENI subsidiary Saipem SpA, the Algerian independent media has been publishing a seemingly endless stream of articles on corruption at Sonatrach, further fuelled by later reports in the Canadian and Italian press that Swiss magistrates are investigating possible corrupt practices on the part of Canada’s SNC-Lavalin in Algeria. While the initial trigger may have been provided by these external probes, there are signs that the media chatter has been deliberately kept going by elements within the establishment: new tidbits relating to middlemen involved in corruption at Sonatrach appear to have been leaked to reliable journalists (notably Salima Tlemçani of El Watan, who has close ties to the military), those who do not have anything new to add have been free to indulge in speculation, and other, unrelated cases have been dragged back into the open – including lurid claims that then Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni was seen leaving national police chief Col. Ali Tounsi’s office with a mysterious bundle of documents under his arm immediately after the latter was shot dead at his desk by a colleague in 2010). Time and again, the central figures in these scandals are individuals who are or were close associates of Bouteflika’s: Zerhouni, former Foreign Minister Mohamed Bedjaoui, and above all former Energy Minister Chakib Khelil (who according to certain press reports jetted briefly back to Algiers from his self-imposed exile in the midst of all this to consult with the President’s brother, Saïd Bouteflika, and seek assurances that he would be protected from prosec
    ution). Furthermore, it has transpired that the Algerian courts themselves opened a second investigation into corruption at Sonatrach last October[3] that in part covers the same ground as the Milanese investigation into Saipem, and that a decision was taken in January of this year to allow both the defence and the prosecution in the long-buried El Khalifa Bank case[4] to have their appeals heard in a court of cassation, as of April 2. It would seem therefore that there is an internal, Algerian dynamic going on here, and there are grounds for thinking that it may be driven by parties within the establishment with an axe to grind with the President and his erstwhile ‘clan’. In this respect, it is worth noting that the Spanish defence official quoted above also alluded to a conflict between the Algerian top brass and Saïd Bouteflika, who is said to have cornered all the commissions generated by a contract signed with Germany for the supply of frigates to the navy, leaving the military out. 
    Thus the signs seem to point to the emergence of a new, three-way game at the top, between Bouteflika, Tewfik and the generals, in place of the rather uneventful two-man game run by Bouteflika and Tewfik alone over the past eight years. This would seem to be the context of Bouteflika’s repeated hat-tipping to the army and the DRS in his recent messages, his warning about the continued risk of Arab Spring contagion, and his statement of “confidence in the ability of the criminal justice system” to deal appropriately with the resurgent corruption scandals. It is unclear at this stage how this game will play out, but it is certainly worth monitoring as Algeria enters the run-up to the spring 2014 presidential poll.

  • March Algerie monthly report (1/4)

     

    ALGERIA MONTHLY SITUATION REPORT

                         Executive Summary

                            Political Trends

    ·     Taking advantage of the attention that has been focussed on the south of the country in the wake of the In Amenas attack, trade unionists and the unemployed in Algeria’s southern wilayas have launched one of the broadest and most militant protest movements over socio-economic issues that the country has seen in years, prompting PM Sellal to issue dire warnings about “criminal gangs” seeking to split southern Algeria away from the north.

    ·      At the same time, a number of corruption scandals involving figures formerly close to President Bouteflika, which had been thought to be closed cases, have returned with a vengeance.

    ·      There are signs that the military – encouraged by the centre-stage role it has been given by the war in Mali and its repercussions in Algeria but irked by Bouteflika’s decision to grant the French over-flight rights and by disputes over commissions on defence procurement – is re-emerging as a political player. The resurgence of the corruption scandals may be a factor of this.

    ·      In place of the old duumvirate made up of Bouteflika and DRS chief Tewfik, a more complex, three-way game, involving Bouteflika, Tewfik and the military, may be emerging in the run-up to the 2014 presidential election.

                            Foreign Relations

    ·     With the French military battling AQMI and its allies very close to Algeria’s southern borders, a French general has praised Algiers as “our best ally in Mali”.

    ·      President Bouteflika has nonetheless been happy to let the Russian Foreign Minister condemn, in the name of both their countries, outside intervention “in Mali and Syria”.

    ·      Algiers’ efforts to acquire US-made armed drones have been predictably unsuccessful. The question of collaboration with the American drone capability in the Sahara remains open.

                         &n
    bsp;      Security

    ·     In a rare report of jihadist activity in the capital, one Algerian daily has claimed that the security forces apprehended a would-be suicide bomber in an Algiers suburb towards the end of February.

    ·      Overall, however, AQMI in northern Algeria appears to be on the back foot at present and not well equipped to launch attacks in solidarity with its comrades in northern Mali.

    ·      With the armed forces and the Energy Ministry still discussing how best to secure oil and gas facilities in the south of the country, a vehicle belonging to an Italian company was hijacked and stolen near Hassi Messaoud in early February.

    ·      There have been suggestions that foreign oil companies will be prohibited from using private security firms to defend their installations in southern Algeria, with the army taking over this role.

    ·      Sporadic reporting of mostly minor incidents on the southern and eastern borders continues, but may not be a full reflection of the real situation.

    ·     Reports that one of AQMI’s main leaders in the Sahara, Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, has been killed are judged credible by French official sources.

  • Maroc : Panique générale dans les rangs de l’armée

    ARMÉE ROYALE MAROCAINE : Panique générale dans les rangs

    L’ex-officier marocain de l’armée de l’air, Mostafa Adib, exilé en France a affirmé que « l’armée marocaine est prise de panique » suite à la décision du Front Polisario de se désengager de l’accord de cessez-le-feu.

    « Des informations provenant des forces armées marocaines font état de difficultés rencontrées par le souverain marocain à organiser le redéploiement des militaires au niveau des différents points du mur. Des soldats passent la nuit sur les routes et dans des moyens de transport sans nourritures ni couvertures », a-t-il fait savoir selon plusieurs sources médiatiques sahraouies. Diplômé de l’école royale de l’Air (ERA), Mostafa Adib a également indiqué que l’armée marocaine « est empêtrée dans la distribution des armes individuelles et des rations pour les soldats et craint de ne plus maîtriser la situation ». « Une solution consensuelle pour le redéploiement des armes lourdes et des unités d’intervention rapide tout au long du mur de la honte et même derrière n’a toujours pas été trouvée » a-t-il révélé.

    Et à l’ancien gradé de l’armée royale de détailler par ses propos que « chacun des responsables sur le terrain demande davantage de protection pour lui et son bataillon dans un climat tendu marqué par un déficit de moyens valables pour le déploiement et l’utilisation ». « Des désertions dans les rangs des soldats voire des cas de refus d’obtempérer au sein des casernes sises dans les territoires occupés ou même au Maroc ont été enregistrés », a témoigné l’ex-officier marocain, ajoutant que « les officiers supérieurs de l’armée marocaine sont placés sur écoute et sous surveillance des services royaux, car indignes de confiance, semble-t-il, et un remaniement est attendu dans les postes des hauts responsables militaires.

    Mustapha Adib s’est fait connaître par la publication d’un ouvrage retentissant décrivant dans le détail les échecs de l’Armée marocaine au Sahara occidental, lors des grandes offensives militaires sahraouies et qui ont poussé Hassan II à accepter le cessez le feu et le référendum d’autodétermination.

    D’autre part les unités de l’Armée populaire de libération sahraouie (APLS) poursuivent, les attaques et bombardements contre les sites de retranchement des soldats de l’occupation marocaine le long de la ceinture de séparation, a annoncé le ministère sahraoui de la Défense dans un communiqué.

    »Les combattants de l’Armée de libération sahraouie ont poursuivi, au troisième jour consécutif, leurs attaques et leurs bombardements des lieux de retranchement des soldats de l’occupation marocaine le long de la ceinture, malgré des survols aériens de l’ennemi », indique le communiqué militaire (N 3) du ministère sahraoui.

    Les bombardements ont ciblé plusieurs centres, notamment les bases 17 et 18 à Farsia, la base 13 relevant du régiment 67 à Bekkari, la base 04 du régiment 64 dans la région de Diret, le point d’observation 71 de la base 07 entre Laariche et Fedret Laghrab à Haouza. Le communiqué a également fait état du bombardement de la base 25 relevant du régiment 40 dans la région Oum Lakta, la base 20 du bataillon d’infanterie 68 dans la région d’Adim Adjloud. Ce bombardement a fait « des morts et des blessés, alors que d’autres ont fui les champs de bataille », ajoute le communiqué.
    M. B.

    Le Courrier d’Algérie, 17 nov 2020

    Tags : #Sahara Occidental #Maroc #Polisario

  • Algérie : La main pyromane débusquée

    19 PERSONNES ARRÊTÉES DANS UN RÉSEAU AUX RAMIFICATIONS INTERNATIONALES DERRIERE LES FEUX DE GOURAYA, À TIPASA : La main pyromane débusquée

    Les conclusions de l’enquête sur les incendies de forêt survenu durant la nuit du 6 au 7 novembre dernier, à Gouraya dans la wilaya de Tipasa en particulier, ont été rendues publiques hier par le procureur de la République près le tribunal de Cherchell, Kamel Chenoufi, à savoir :

    D’abord, ce qui était un doute dans la piste privilégiée par l’enquête s’est avéré être effectivement un acte criminel commis délibérément par un groupe d’action qui a mis le feu aux poudres et agissant à l’instigation d’individus résidents à l’étranger. Autrement, les incendies de Gouraya étaient prémédités par ce réseau criminel qui allait provoquer le chaos.

    Cette enquête a été confiée aux deux brigades de la Gendarmerie nationale de Gouraya et de Cherchell en coordonation avec la Police judiciaire et la Sûreté de la wilaya de Tipasa.
    Un total de 19 suspects ont été arrêtés et mis à la disposition de la justice pour la poursuite de l’enquête judiciaire. Après les premières investigations, le procureur de la République a ordonné les services de sécurité d’arrêter les personnes suspectées pour acte criminel délibéré. Au terme des conclusions des investigations, il a été constaté que les incendies, ont le propre d’un réseau national qui dispose de ramifications complices à l’étranger.

    Selon les explications données hier, en conférence de presse, par le Procureur, Kamel Chenoufi, ce réseau est scindé en quatre groupes. Le premier est composé de trois personnes, dont les motivations déterminées ont conclu qu’elles ont volontairement mis le feu dans la forêt de Gouraya dans le but de déstabiliser l’Algérie et l’ordre public. Ces personnes ont agis à l’instigation d’individus se trouvant à l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur du pays. Pour accomplir leur méfait, les pyromanes ont utilisé des bouteilles de gaz butane et dont les actes ont été pris en photo par les criminels eux-mêmes. Des téléphones portables ont été également saisis auprès des 19 suspects, dont un appareil a été débusqué grâce aux recherches de la police dans un lieu gardé secret par le suspect, comme expliqué par le Procureur. Dans les mêmes lieux, des documents de nature administrative ont été également récupérés. Les investigations ont permis aussi de découvrir des échanges de messages (sms) sur les téléphones portables des suspects. Ces derniers étaient en contact avec leur commanditaire à l’extérieur du pays comme l’a révélé la PJ dans la recherche des signes de traçabilité des échanges entre les deux parties.

    L’un des suspects en question a été identifié lui qui procédaient à un transfert illicite d’argent en devise via Western-union. Pour la deuxième catégorie, elle est composée de huit membres. Ce sont eux qui ont mis le feu pour provoquer les dégâts sur les biens publics et particuliers causant la mort de deux personnes et la blessure de plusieurs autres citoyens.

    Quant à la troisième, elle est composée de cinq membres, lesquels ont délibérément mis le feu à leurs maisons pour … aspirer à des aides de l’Éat. Autrement, des escrocs qui allaient passer pour des victimes des incendies.

    Le quatrième groupe était composé par des semeurs de troubles qui, profitant de la situation, ont agis sur les réseaux sociaux pour appeler les citoyens à la révolte et à l’attroupement dans le but de déstabiliser l’ordre public.

    Il va sans dire que ces instigateurs qui ont voulu mettre le feu aux poudres ont fait appel à une campagne d’intox sur internet à l’effet de provoquer le chao.

    Au titre des poursuites judiciaires engagées pour acte criminel, les trois premiers groupes sont accusés de « destruction de biens, atteinte à la sécurité publique et mise à feu provoquant destruction de biens publics et d’autrui et mort de personnes. Le quatrième groupe a été accusé d’incitation à attroupement à l’effet que les citoyens investissent les administrations publiques pour créer une situation d’anarchie. Toutes les personnes arrêtées sont déférées devant le juge enquêteur pour la poursuite des investigations liées à cette affaire criminelle. Elles sont mises sous mandat de dépôt alors que des complices sont en fuite à l’intérieur (2 personnes) comme à l’extérieur (4 personnes) du pays. Ces instigateurs sont accusés de complot contre l’État.
    Farid Guellil

    Le Courrier d’Algérie, 17 nov 2020

    Tags : #Algérie #pyromane #incendies