The information contained in this report is from public and private sources; and has not been corroborated by other sources as to its accuracy.
ALGERIA MONTHLY SITUATION REPORT
January 24, 2014
Executive Summary
Political Trends
· President Bouteflika has again confounded rumours of his demise by returning from Paris, where he had been undergoing medical tests, just in time to sign the decree calling the presidential election, which is to be held on April 17.
· Although he seems physically badly diminished in his rare public appearances and his speech has been impaired, a usually reliable source close to Bouteflika’s inner circle insists that he intends to stand for re-election in April, and that his health is strong enough to permit it.
· The new Special Security Commission has met for the first time, under the chairmanship of CoS Gaïd Saleh, to approve a number of measures including early retirement for several senior DRS officers, giving the appearance that the military has the upper hand over the intelligence services and, indeed, the civilian wing of the state.
· On the other hand, Bouteflika’s special security advisor, who is a lieutenant-colonel in the DRS, has been appointed secretary of the High Security Council, suggesting that there is still life in the Bouteflika-Tewfik tandem.
Foreign Relations
· Algerian defence spending shows an increase of over 15% in the 2014 budget, accounting for a fifth of total government expenditure, while Morocco has approved a four-year plan to increase defence spending by 18.5%.
· Talk of an all-out arms race between the two countries appears to be overblown, however, with Algeria launching big-ticket programmes that had been postponed during the years of civil war while Morocco has to spend increasing amounts on repairing and upgrading second-hand equipment acquired from its Western allies.
· There is no noticeable change in Algerian military doctrine, which seems to be built around the concept of “advanced defence”.
Security
· Algiers remains calm, and there have been a scant few reports of incidents in the oil and gas producing areas.
· AQMI has announced that the small Defenders of Salafi Preaching group, based in north-west Algeria, has finally decided to join forces with it in a united organisation.
· Three suspected members of the Sons of the Sahara movement – which has reportedly merged with a hitherto unknown Tuareg group – have been arrested on suspicion of serving as guides for jihadists between south-west Libya and northern Mali.
· Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Al-Mourabitoun group has issued a report on its operations in 2013 suggesting a strong focus on fighting French forces in northern Mali.
· Sources at Sonatrach indicate that the military is moving to establish direct control over Sonatrach’s own security operations and that plans to establish a security subsidiary seem to have been put on hold until after the presidential election.
· The military is said to have agreed in principle to allow IOCs to hire foreign private security firms to secure facilities in southern Algeria, although this has not been made public.
Political Trends
On Jan. 13, official government news agency APS unexpectedly announced that President Bouteflika had flown to France that day for medical tests at the military-run Val de Grâce hospital in central Paris. Although this was, according to APS, all part of the scheduled follow-up treatment after the stroke he suffered in April of last year, the announcement inevitably sparked a new, fevered bout of rumour and speculation: Bouteflika had been medevacked again after a sudden deterioration in his condition, it was widely assumed; some news sites reported that the President’s family were in Paris to accompany him, lodging at the de luxe George V hotel, while Algerian daily El Watan claimed that the military’s High Command had met in urgent session to take stock of the situation; and pretty soon social media and certain news outlets (Radio France Maghreb and Israeli French-language website Jerusalem Plus, for example) were reporting that Bouteflika had passed away.
The suggestion that the President had been flown to Paris for emergency treatment after a decline in his health rather than for a “routine check-up” appeared all the more plausible in light of his last public appearance, just a fortnight previously: Bouteflika had seemed shockingly diminished in TV footage of the signing of the 2014 Finance Law at a meeting of the Council of Ministers convened for that purpose alone on Dec. 30 (just 24 hours short of the legal deadline). Furthermore, the President had suddenly left the country, with no date initially set for his return, just before another crucial deadline: the constitution requires the head of state to issue a decree formally convening a presidential election at the latest 90 days before the expiry of the current presidential term of office[1], which in this instance meant that the President had to put his signature to the decree by Jan. 19 at the latest. A separate APS dispatch, issued after Bouteflika had been admitted to Val de Grâce, announcing the forthcoming decree “except in case of force majeure and nonobstant the provisions of article 88 of the constitution[2]”, only added to the suspicion that the President’s absence at this crucial juncture was anything but “routine”.
Bouteflika at least put paid to the rumours of his death[3] by returning to Algiers in the afternoon of Jan. 16, and the following day he duly signed the decree convening the presidential election for April 17. As expected, his old rival Ali Benflis was the first out of the starting blocks, officially announcing his candidacy as of Jan. 19. Bouteflika has made no such declaration himself – although this has not stopped a fresh wave of speculation concerning the supposed launch of his campaign for re-election for a fourth consecutive term, however weak his health might be (with at least one Algerian journalist claiming that the President’s influential brother and advisor Saïd had contacted the editors of several newspapers and other media as of the evening of Jan. 17 to instruct them to begin campaigning for the re-election of the President)[4].
In the midst of all this, a trusted source at the Presidency assured us, during the afternoon of Jan. 16, that Bouteflika had indeed been in Paris for a routine check-up, would be back in Algiers later that same day “or on Jan. 17 at the latest”, and would be running for a fourth term; the President was in a reasonable condition, the source insisted, admitting that his speech is impaired but claiming that this is not the consquence of his April 2013 stroke but rather of an operation on his oesophagus “three or four years ago”. This account may appear in many respects counter-intuitive[5], but it is noteworthy that the source – who has almost always proved reliable in the past – was correct about Bouteflika’s return at a time when most commentators were busily writing the President off as moribund, suggesting continued close proximity with the head of state’s inner circle. On balance, it would in our view be unwise to dismiss the possibility that Bouteflika will indeed attempt to run for a fourth term of office, despite his apparent physical frailty (although if he does, it seems increasingly likely that it will be without the prop of a formal vice-presidential candidate, since there would no longer seem to be time to amend the constitution prior to the election).
The same source at the Presidency also confirmed that a high-level military meeting had taken place on Jan. 13, but insisted that it had nothing to do with Bouteflika’s condition but rather was a “routine” meeting to decide on various retir
ements and appointments within the military and security apparatus. This appears to be borne out by a report dated J
an. 13 by news portal Tout Sur l’Algérie (which seems to have been used as a conduit for information relating to changes within the security services on numerous occasions over the past year) indicating that a meeting had been held earlier in the day under the chairmanship of Chief-of-Staff of the armed forces Lt-Gen. Ahmed Gaïd Saleh to formally approve the retirement of a number of high-ranking DRS officers: the ex-head of the Direction Centrale de la Sécurité de l’Armée Maj-Gen. Mhenna Djebbar[6], the former head of the media management department Col. Fawzi, and the former commander of the DRS’ special intervention force Col. Hassen. TSA indicated that this was the first meeting of the Special Security Commission[7] – a body that was reportedly set up by presidential order late last year to vet and approve decisions of the General Staff relating to all promotions, retirements, procurement etc. (see previous report). Intriguingly, initial reports in the Algerian media in early December had suggested that the Special Security Commission was to be chaired by PM Sellal and as such was intended to signify the submission of the military and security apparatus to the elected, civilian executive branch. In the event, however, it would seem that it is chaired by the Chief-of-Staff, thus symbolising quite the opposite: the relative autonomy of the military and security apparatus, at least at the present juncture.
Furthermore, the fact that it is the CoS who chairs meetings of the body that officially approves personnel changes at the DRS would seem, on the surface of things, to signify the submission of the DRS to the regular military. Appearances can be deceptive, however, and it may be premature to conclude that Lt-Gen. Gaïd Saleh – who is close to retirement himself and reportedly despised by many of his own colleagues within the regular army as well as being on bad terms with various senior DRS officers – is really lording it over both the civilian branch of the regime and the powerful intelligence and security service. In this connection, it may be worth noting a small item, tucked away at the bottom of a page in the Journal Officiel (the Algerian government gazette) in mid-December, officialising the appointment of Djamel Eddine Bouzghaia as secretary of the High Security Council – a body made up of top military officers and senior ministers[8] which meets irregularly under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic, whom it is supposed to advise on matters relating to national security. Lt-Col. Bouzghaia, who hails from western Algeria and has a doctorate from a French university in international relations and energy cooperation, has been President Bouteflika’s special security advisor since around 2010, with particular responsibility for issues relating to the Sahara and the Sahel. Significantly, he is a DRS officer, who is understood to have made his career in the Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité Extérieur (foreign intelligence branch), and for years served as the head of the Institut Supérieur des Etudes de Sécurité, a research centre run by the DRS. This would seem to suggest that there may be still life left in the partnership between Bouteflika and DRS chief Lt-Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Médiène that has dominated the power structure for almost a decade.
Foreign Relations
Ratified and signed into law on Dec. 30, the Algerian government’s budget for 2014 has been criticised by some members of parliament and journalists for the remarkably high levels of spending devoted to defence and security: with a total of $19bn (DA 1,496,635bn) the Ministries of Defence and the Interior take up no less than 31.75% of the government’s budget for this year[9]. The $12.132b (DA 955,926bn) earmarked for the Ministry of National Defence alone represents just over 20% of total state expenditure, and is up some 15.75% on last year. At the same time, Morocco’s government has approved a staggered increase in defence spending of 18.5% over four years (rising from $3.8bn in 2014 to $4.5bn in 2018). Do these figures signify an arms race between the two countries, as some media have suggested?
The first observation that needs to be made is that, while the 15.75% increase in Algeria’s defence budget that has drawn so much attention is undeniably a hefty increase, it is by no means exceptional: one has to go as far back as 2007 to find a year-on-year increase in military expenditure of less than 10%, with figures in the 20s being fairly typical[10]. Moroccan defence spending has also been growing constantly since at least 2003, but at significantly lower rates (only in 2008 did year-on-year growth exceed 10%), and it is since the mid-2000s that the gap between levels of defence spending in Algeria and Morocco really began to open up[11].
It has been suggested[12] that the increase in Algerian defence spending reflects “the renewal of military equipment, which fell ten years behind because of the embargo of the 1990s and the stoppage of the Russian defence industry”. There is a grain of truth in this, but only a grain. It is certainly the case that Russia’s military production was subject to disruption in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union (traditionally Algeria’s leading supplier), and there was some reticence on the part of certain Western countries about selling weapons systems to Algeria during this period due to concerns about human rights. But the “embargo” (about which Algerian politicians and media love to complain) was never a formal one, and certainly never total – Algiers continued to buy weapons systems and other materiel throughout the conflict, notably from suppliers such as South Africa but even, on occasion, from Western countries including the United States. But Algerian defence spending through the 1990s – a period when resources were stretched due to low oil prices and the high cost of lending for the then decidedly unbankable Algerian state – was obviously mainly focussed on winning the civil war. Spending began to balloon as of the mid-2000s, with the pressure of the civil war receding and oil prices on the rise[13], as Algeria turned back massively to Russia for big-ticket projects, for the air force and land forces in particular, that seem to have been postponed during the 1990s[14]. Attention has since been paid to the navy also.
The latest increases in defence spending can be seen as a continuation of that trend. But it is very much worth noting that these new – or rather postponed – acquisitions do not seem to correspond with any significant change in Algeria’s military doctrine. The Algerian armed forces’ orientation remains essentially defensive, with no investment in weapons systems that could be said clearly to be designed for major, long-term operations beyond the country’s borders; recent acquisitions seem intended in part to build the capability to sanctuarise Algeria’s territory while maintaining the possibility of launching limited strikes beyond its borders in case of war[15] – an orientation that has been described as “advanced defence”. Other acquisitions – such as the three planned squadrons of Mi28 heavy attack helicopters – remain focussed on counter-insurgency operations.
Meanwhile, Morocco’s four-year defence expenditure plans – which represent an average annual increase of only 4.5% – seem to have less to do with a race to catch up with Algeria than with the need to maintain and/or modernise existing equipment. Rabat has for some time had a strategy of buying used equipment from the surplus stocks of the United States and other NATO countries, including France, at cut-rate prices – for example the 200 Abrams M1A1 main battle tanks, which had served in the Gulf War, acquired from the US in 2011, and in recent weeks three Harfang drones that had been used by French forces in Afghanistan – while on occasion persuading friendly and far wealthier Arab countries, n
otably Saudi Arabia, to finance certain big-ticket acqui
sitions (over recent years, the more expensive and more advanced systems have tended to be for the air force and the navy, which had been lagging behind Morocco’s land forces). This strategy has turned out to have hidden costs, however. The second-hand weapons systems that have fleshed out the land forces’ inventory have frequently required repairs and upgrades to make them fully operational – reportedly costing as much a $1bn in the case of the Abrams MBTs. The newer and more advanced systems that Rabat has acquired, meanwhile, may turn out to be prohibitively costly to use: the Moroccan air force’s 22 new F-16 fighters, of which the last three were delivered in mid-2012, reportedly rarely leave the tarmac at Ben Guerir air base, at least in part for budgetary reasons. Thus, while in certain areas the Moroccan military may arguably have the qualitative edge over Algeria thanks to occasional acquisitions of high-quality Western weaponry, it remains a moot point whether its personnel have been able to acquire the training and practice needed to operate some of its more advanced systems.
Security
By the end of December, the monthly level of political violence nationwide was slightly lower than average of previous months, with 13 incidents over all, of which six were at the initiative of Aqmi (or other jihadist groups). So far January appears to be on a par for the number of incidents (nine up to Jan. 19), but not in terms of Aqmi operations, of which only two have been recorded so far.
ALGIERS and its immediate environs have remained quiet. The most significant development in the north of the country over the past month came on Dec. 22, when Aqmi issued a brief statement[16] announcing “the good news” that “our brothers of the Defenders of Salafi Preaching group have decided to join Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to join one united group”. The Defenders of Salafi Preaching, also known by the Arabic acronym, is a small jihadist group of a few dozen fighters at most that has been active on and off in north-western Algeria under this name since 1998. Like AQMI’s ancestor the GSPC, HDS is a split-off from the former GIA, but it had until the latest announcement steadfastly rejected merger suggestions from the GSPC/AQMI. The fact that HDS has at last decided to join forces with AQMI may be a sign that it is under pressure and increasingly unable to recruit, as would-be jihadists prefer to go Syria or other, more active theatres (a consideration which seems also to apply to AQMI itself).
There have been scant reports of jihadist activity in the OIL & GAS PRODUCING REGIONS:
– Algerian security sources told Chinese news agency Xinhua that the Algerian army, using helicopter gunships, on January 14 intercepted and killed three jihadists in the Grand Erg Occidental some 700 km south of Algiers. The jihadists were travelling on an offroader and were “aiming to infiltrate the gas-producing zone of Hassi Rmel in the wilaya of Laghouat”. Their car was destroyed. El-Khabar (16/01) reported that 50,000 soldiers were mobilised across eight wilayas in the Algerian south and the eastern and southern borders after the operation (a deployment it claimed was related to “intelligence reports” suggesting that jihadist groups were planning a big operation against oil and gas sites to mark the first anniversary of the In Amenas attack).
– In a somewhat garbled report, Algerian daily Echourouk (15/12/13) claimed that three smugglers were captured by the Army and the Gendarmerie in an area it referred to as “Takalguemine” south of In Salah, wilaya of Tamanrasset, on Dec. 14. The smugglers were said to have been travelling in an offroader believed to have been stolen from “the American company Global”, operating at “Khechiba” (Krechba?) oil field. They were reportedly carrying a number of machine guns and a large sum in cash, and are believed to have been on their way to rendez-vous at In Amguel (wilaya of Tamanrasset) with a group of “new Libyan recruits to Aqmi” arriving from Bordj El Haoues (wilaya of Illizi).
In addition, mirroring the HDS-AQMI merger in the north of the country, El-Khabar reported on Jan. 8 that the Sons of the Sahara Movement for Islamic Justice had announced in a video statement its merger with a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Free Tuareg Group and pledged to “keep fighting the Algerian army until their demands are met”.
The EASTERN BORDERS were, ostensibly at least, unusually calm. Just one incident was reported near the border with Libya or Tunisia (at least on the Algerian side[17]):
– El-Khabar on January 12 said security forces had arrested in Djanet, wilaya of Illizi, three people suspected of belonging to the Sons of the Sahara Movement for Islamic Justice during the first week of January. They are suspected of having worked as guides for jihadist groups along the desert tracks from Sebha in Libya to Khelil in northern Mali.
The SOUTHERN BORDERS, too, were relatively quiet, with only three incidents reported:
– The security services on January 3 led a series of raids on smugglers in the areas between Tinzaouatine and Timiaouine in the areas between the wilayas of Tamanrasset and Adrar, near the Malian border. After a brief clash with smugglers in one of the raids, four smugglers were arrested, 16 trucks seized and five weapons recovered. Fuel and foodstuffs made up most of the smuggled goods.
– A similar operation was carried out in the Bordj Baji Mokhtar sector on January 8, resulting in the seizure of four machine guns, ammunition, and more than seven trucks carrying mostly foodstuffs. Seventeen people were arrested.
– El-Khabar also reported that a jihadist belonging to the hitherto unknown “Preaching and Jihad Brigades” surrendered to the security forces in the wilaya of Adrar on January 12, and quoted security sources as saying he had “taken part in 22 operations in the area of Bordj Baji Mokhtar and Tinzaouatine”. He is also reported to have confessed to having been involved in the Tiguentourine operation a year ago, being “in charge of supplies”.
Beyond Algeria’s borders, Mauritanian press agency ANI on January 4 said it had received a statement from Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Al-Mourabitoun group giving an account of operations in 2013 (those conducted by its two components, Mujao and Belmokhtar’s own Katiba Al-Moulathamin up to August 2013, and those by the merged group thereafter). Although the list began with the In Amenas attack of January 2013, all other operations were in Mali and consisted mainly of roadside bombs or small attacks against French forces, and indeed the group’s statement, as described by ANI, was a long diatribe against France, promising the French forces in Mali “a Soviet fate” and “punishment for the French people for their aggression”.
Meawhile, one year on from the In Amenas attack, private sources at Sonatrach have shed new light on how security for the oil and gas sector is being reorganised. According to a security manager within Sonatrach’s HSE department, speaking to us at the end of the first week of January:
The Ministry of Defence tells us that oil and gas sites in the south have been secured by the army, using its own manpower and resources. Sonatrach’s own security structures have been marginalised, playing an occasional role only, providing the army with intelligence. The Ministry of Defence is trying to establish full control over all security-related matters, including Sonatrach’s internal security and Sonatrach’s own security personnel.
It is clear now that the Sonatrach security subisidiary will not see the light of day before the Ministry of Defence has completed its purge and take-over of security at the national oil company. And this will take several months.
The worst thin
g about all this, from the point of view of Sonatrach’s security personnel, is that discussions are now under wa
y between the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Defence and IOCs operating in Algeria with a view to setting up a system to finance security provisions at oil and gas facilities whereby IOCs will be granted significant reductions in taxes and other charges so that they can pay for their own security. This principle has been agreed on, and the discussions are currently focussing on the size of these reductions. But this financial question may end up sparking protests by Sonatrach security personnel, including staff on permanent contracts as well as security guards with short-term contracts.
A few days later, a source at Sonatrach’s legal department gave a slightly different appreciation of developments:
All questions relaing to the security of oil and gas installations have been put on hold pending the presidential election. Some measures have already been taken, however, including two decisions that were taken at the recent meeting of the Special Security Commission at the Ministry of Defence. Firstly, responsibility for security at oil and gas installations is to remain in the hands of Sonatrach and the army. Secondly, and more importantly, it was decided that IOCs will be allowed to employ the services of foreign private security companies, subject to certain conditions – notably that Sonatrach must be involved in managing and recruiting foreign security personnel, on the strength of individual dossiers that will first have to be validated by the Defence Ministry’s Special Security Commission. Applications to operate in Algeria have already been submitted for a number of foreign private security companies that only employ foreign personnel, such as the Dubai-based Olive for example. This decision to allow the use of foreign private security companies has not been made public[18].
An earlier decision, applied as of Dec. 25, has to do with Sonatrach’s own internal security staff: security officials at Sonatrach headquarters and within other administrative units of the national oil company will no longer belong to the DRS but to the Ministry of Defence. Their transfers are under way currently.
Plans for a security subsidiary at Sonatrach have not been abandoned, but they have been put off until a later date – probably until after April 2014. The managers in charge of setting up the subsidiary are still working on it and say they have made a lot of headway, and are now waiting for the Defence Ministry’s green light to begin setting up the new structure.
END
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[1] To be more precise, the constitution stipulates that a presidential election must be held “within the month preceding the expiry of the president’s term of office” and that the electorate must be formally convened 90 days before the chosen date of the election. Bouteflika was sworn in for his present term on April 19, 2009.
[2] Which allows for the impeachment of the President should “serious and lasting illness” render him incapable of discharging his duties.
[3] The most alarmist rumours appear to have been propagated by media and websites such as Algérie Express that are close to the RCD, a mainly Kabyle secularist party.
[4] Technically he has up to 45 days as of the decree convening the election in which to do so – meaning that an announcement could be pushed back as late at March 2 or 3.
[5] Indeed, the source’s assertion that Bouteflika’s speech has been impaired for several years is demonstrably inaccurate: in his last public address, the now famous Setif speech of May 8, 2012, the President read clearly and fluently from a prepared text for some 40 minutes.
[6] When the DCSA was transferred to the General Staff of the armed forces in September of last year, Maj-Gen. Djebbar was reported to have stayed at the DRS, taking over as head of the security and intelligence service’s Bureau d’Organisation. One source, with many years experience of the inner workings of Algerian intelligence, at the time tipped him as a strong contender to succeed Lt-Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Médiène as head of the DRS. The same source now argues that taking retirement does not in any way preclude returning at a later stage to take up higher responsibilities (pointing to the example of Bachir Tartag, who formally retired in 1999 but was later brought back to head the Direction de la Sécurité Intérieure for over two and a half years) and suggests that Djebbar – whose relations with CoS Gaïd Saleh are said to be very poor – may still be in line for the top job at the DRS.
[7] This was later confirmed to us by a well-informed source at Sonatrach’s legal department, quoted at length below (Security).
[8] While the constitution defines in broad terms the responsibilities of the High Security Council, it does not stipulate who its members should be, this being left to the legislator to define. Although constitutionally it is an advisory body, the High Security Council played a decisive role in suspending the electoral process, ousting President Chadli Bendjedid and designating a new collective presidency in January 1992.
[9] Listed as operating budget. The Finance Law does not list capital expenditure for the defence and internal security sectors separately.
[10] 2012 saw an exceptionally large hike of 40%, due largely to pay increases for military personnel that were rushed through in 2011 in response to the Arab Spring.
[11] In absolute terms, Morocco consistently outstripped Algeria in military spending in the late 1980s and first half of the 1990s, with Algeria only overtaking its western neighbour as of 1997, after five years of very hefty increases as the civil war flared.
[12] Algerian defence specialist Akram Kharief, quoted in El Watan, 30/12/13.
[13] Oil prices had fallen to historic lows at the end of 1998, just before Bouteflika came to power, but had more than doubled by the end of his first term of office in April 2004 and the upward trend has by and large continued since (to the exclusion of the drastic but ultimately short-lived correction in the second half of 2008, after a particularly dramatic spike in the first half).
[14] In 2006, Algiers and Moscow signed a massive arms transfer deal worth an estimated $7.5bn, which included 28 Su-30MKA fighter aircraft, 36 Mig-29SMT fighter aircraft, 16 Yak-130 advanced training aircraft; 8 battalions of S-300 PMU-2 SAM systems, a number of Pantsir-S1 (SA-22) air defence missile systems, and a number of T-90S Main Battle Tanks. It also involved the write-off of the residual Algerian military debt to Moscow inherited from Soviet times.
[15] Hence for example reported plans to buy between four and six Airbus 330 MRTTs to replace the air force’s existing fleet of Ilyushin Il-78 in-flight refuelling tanker aircraft, and a likely order for Su34 long-range bombers.
[16] Unusually, the statement made no mention of HDS fighters swearing allegiance to the emir of Aqmi — and in fact made no mention at all of the emir of Aqmi, Abdelmalek Droukdel.
[17] The Tunisian press did however report that a group of armed young men, described as “bandits” attacked the frontier post of Bouchebka, near the Tunisian wilaya of Kassrine, on January 8. An 18-year-old man was killed on the attack and a Tunisian border guard was wounded and transferred to Tébessa, Algeria, for treatment.
[18] There do however appear to have been some echoes in the media. On Jan. 16 – three days after the Security Commission meeting – El Watan r
an an article entitled “Tiguentourine: the oil majors’ Trojan horse” reprising a guest column by former Sonatrach Vice President Hocine Malti publis
hed by the same daily on Dec. 23, 2013. In his op-ed, ostensibly celebrating Sonatrach’s 50th anniversary, Malti argued that the recent changes in the DRS and the military had in fact been imposed on Algeria by BP, Statoil and other Western oil companies, together with the British and American intelligence services in response to the perceived security and intelligence failures that led to the In Amenas attack. He continued:
“BP is looking to entrust protection of the Tiguentourine and In Salah sites to private security companies. If BP manages to impose this choice – and everything suggests that it will […] – other foreign oil companies operating in Algeria will follow suit. And what does Sonatrach have to say by way of a reply, after its outraged protestations that security is a question of national sovereignty? That BP can employ consultants; in other words, security specialists, foreign ones of course, who will tell the Algerian security forces what they have to do. Where is the sovereignty of the state in that set-up?
“BP and Statoil will of course play the lead parts, but they will not be the only ones demanding changes. All IOCs are now demanding new modifications to the Hydrocarbons Law because, they say, security-related costs have gone up 15%. In other words, what they want is a reduction in the taxes they pay in Algeria.
“All in all, the IOCs want to set the security standards for Algerian oil installations themselves, privatise the fight against terrorism by employing mercenaries to protect those very installations, and impose their own financial terms for their operations in Algeria.”
Malti (and the El Watan journalist who summarised his op-ed on Jan. 16) also referenced an article in Le Soir d’Algérie (29/10/13) reporting that “Stirling, BP’s British security contractor, has just signed a strategic partnership with Olive, another British company based in the UAE which is renowned for using armed mercenaries to provide security for the sites and personalities with which it is entrusted.”
