This report contains public and private information, which has not been corroborated by third party sources.
ALGERIA MONTHLY SITUATION REPORT
May 23, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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 (wil
aya 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”.
END
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[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 activity 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.
