The following information is provided from private and public sources, none of which has been corroborated.
ALGERIA MONTHLY SITUATION REPORT
August 28, 2013
Executive Summary
Political Trends
· President Bouteflika has still not resumed his official duties and remains largely out of sight.
· While most sources seem to agree that Bouteflika remains so badly weakened by his stroke that a fourth term of office is unthinkable, one well informed private source claims on the contrary that he has made a full recovery, is in control of the situation and intends to run again in 2014. The forthcoming Council of Ministers may provide important pointers as to which version is correct.
· Prime Minister Sellal has been continuing his inspection visits of the provinces, during which his manner seems increasingly confident and statesmanlike, not to say presidential.
· With parliament due to reconvene on Sept. 2, the fractious FLN leadership has been instructed to put its house in order ahead of what looks like being a busy legislative season.
Foreign Relations
· A recent speech PM Sellal clearly expressed the siege mentality of Algeria’s rulers since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, and restated Algiers’ refusal to assume regional leadership.
· Algiers is nonetheless being dragged into a more interventionist role, especially to the east, where it is contributing very heavily to the crackdown on a jihadist group in Tunisia’s Djebel Chaambi and providing training and other assistance to the Tunisian and Libyan military.
· An outbreak of ugly ethnic violence in Bordj Badji Mokhtar on Algeria’s border with Mali is the result of overspill from the conflict in northern Mali and is symptomatic of the dwindling efficiency of Algiers’ traditional mechanisms of control in the Sahara region.
· To the west, Algeria’s crackdown on fuel smuggling has caused severe socio-economic and even political tension in Morocco’s Orientale province.
· Polisario and its supporters have picked up on the hue and cry in the Algerian press over Moroccan drug smuggling.
Security
· There has been a marked uptick in jihadist activity, notably in AQMI’s principal base in Kabylia.
· Threats of attacks against the Egyptian embassy in Algiers in response to the Egyptian government’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood probably did not emanate from a bona fide terrorist group, and the capital remained quiet throughout the month.
· There have been fewer incursions across Algeria’s eastern borders, although there were reports that a group of MUJAO fighters had entered the country in an attempt to spring a number of their imprisoned comrades from jail in Ouargla.
· With the Algerian army and gendarmerie heavily committed along the border with Tunisia, there has been an upsurge in jihadist activity along the southern borders with Mali and Niger, suggesting that there may be limits to the Algerian military’s ability to lock down all the borders, all the time.
· Mokhtar Belmokhtar has announced the merger of his group with MUJAO to form a new united jihadist organisation calling itself Al Mourabitoun, with ambitions to become Al-Qaeda’s leading franchisee “between the Nile and the Atlantic”.
Political Trends
With parliament in recess and much of the country on holiday, August in Algeria is usually a slack period, politically speaking. This year it has been particularly slow, the usual inhibiting factors being compounded by the illness of the once all-powerful head of state. However, with a clutch of important political issues requiring urgent attention, there is a latent tension in the situation, which seems increasingly ripe for release.
As expected, President Bouteflika failed to conduct the individual assessment meetings with government ministers that had been a fixture of Ramadans past. Neither did he put in an appearance at nighttime prayers for the 27th Ramadan[1] at the Grand Mosque in Algiers, or for the Eid Al-Fitr prayers at the end of Ramadan, occasions he has always made a point of attending in the past. Rumours began to fly after his Eid no-show that he had been flown back to France for further treatment, and on Aug. 24 there was a sudden Twitter-fuelled burst of reports that he had died. Neither stories turned out to be true, but they were very much indicative of public perceptions of the President’s condition since he returned to Algeria, apparently wheelchair-bound, in mid-July.
Bouteflika did, however, make two short appearances on Algerian state TV news in the middle of the month. On Aug. 14, he was pictured receiving Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal at his Algiers residence, wearing a dark-blue dressing gown; the following day he was shown, again at his residence in the capital, in the company of armed forces Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Ahmed Gaïd Salah (for whom he donned a white shirt). In both instances, the images were broadcast without the sound. Speaking to us some time later, a usually well informed Algerian source, who is close to a number of DRS officers at various levels, volunteered the information that as a result of the stroke he suffered in April Bouteflika can still barely speak, and stutters when he does.
The same source added that the country’s top decision-makers, looking ahead to next year’s presidential election, are actively looking for a “compromise candidate” – a compromise, that is, between the different elements within the establishment – who can be relied upon not to challenge their power and privileges once in office. The source remained somewhat vague as to just who was involved in this search, but seemed to suggest that the armed forces’ officer corps would not have much of a say: the military, the source claimed, is thoroughly dominated by the DRS and, contrary to earlier suggestions from other sources, has not been able to capitalise on events in Mali in order to reassert itself as an independent actor. Furthermore, the source pointed out, the military’s leading figure, Lt-Gen. Gaïd Salah, who is 73, is likely soon to take retirement. This would seem to imply that the hunt for a successor is essentially the DRS’s business. This picture may up to a point reflect the source’s own closeness to the DRS, however. Indeed, the very fact that so much effort is going into reaching a consensus – and the fact that no such consensus has yet been found – would seem to suggest that this is not a matter DRS chief Lt-Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Médiène can decide on his own. More broadly, possible shifts in the balance of forces between the DRS and the armed forces’ top brass remain very much worth monitoring over the coming period, in particular with the army cast once again, thanks to the turmoil on Algeria’s borders, as the saviour of the nation.
As for the range of potential establishment candidates, the source’s only observation was that Ali Benflis – Bouteflika’s former chief-of-staff and one-time Prime Minister who ended up running against him in 2004 with the tacit approval of the then head of the armed forces, and whose name has again been floated this year as a possible contender in 2014 – does not seem well placed as things stand. And indeed, after a very brief flurry of interest, the press has largely been ignoring Benflis of late. On the other hand, PM Ahmed Ouyahia – who, it will be recalled, was received by Tewfik in mid-July – received another boost in early August when members of the RND (the party he headed until January of this year) from across the country began signing a petition calling on him to run for President in 2014. Arguably, however, the most likely candidate remains the current Prime Minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, who has been continuing his inspection visits to the provinces, now at a rate of around one per week, and displaying an increasingly assured and presidential manner.
The general consensus at the pres
ent time, therefore, is that Bouteflika’s prospects of recovering sufficiently to run for a fourth term of office next year are negligible, and that he is being kept so to speak on political life support while the rest of the establishment casts around for an alternative. There have been a few dissenting voices, however. Kabyle news agency Siwel, for example, claimed on Aug. 24 that Bouteflika was planning to convene a meeting of the Council of Ministers in the coming days after which he would announce a thorough shake-up of the government, with several ministers set to lose their jobs for failing to show sufficient loyalty to the President during his spell in hospital in France. Siwel is the media arm of Kabyle-separatist singer Ferhat Mehenni’s self-proclaimed “Provisional Government of Kabylia” and as such would not normally be expected to have privileged access to the inner circles of the Algerian executive branch. Curiously, however, the tone of its report does chime with the account given to us by a private source of long standing at the Presidency itself. The source, who has proved generally reliable and often highly valuable over the years, is not only adamant that Bouteflika “has recovered, speaks, and walks” but even goes as far as to claim that the President’s return to Algeria in a wheelchair was nothing but “a ploy”: having realised while in hospital in France that most of the establishment and the political class had written him off as all but dead, he wanted to be able to gauge their attitude towards him, in this putatively moribund state, up close and in person, and so chose to play the part on arrival in Algiers. Once the political/security elite realised that he was not dying after all, everyone “fell back into line”. DRS chief Tewfik, the source insists, remains faithful to the President and is not trying to undermine him or squeeze him out. Pointing out that Bouteflika is “only” 75 years old, the source further claims that he still intends to run for a fourth successive term of office in 2014.
This account is radically at odds with the few openly observable signs so far, not to mention with what other sources have been telling us for some time, and the suggestion that Bouteflika has gone to the length of using props to help him play mind-games with other members of the establishment appears, prima facie, almost outlandish. But it is worth underlining the fact that the source has, in principle, excellent access and has over many years provided numerous invaluable insights. On the crucial question of how far Bouteflika remains an active player, therefore, there is little choice but to reserve one’s judgement for the time being. On this and related issues, however, events over the coming days may provide important pointers.
While Siwel may be alone in casting it as a prelude to Bouteflika’s own version of the night of the long knives, it is by no means the only news source to have evoked an imminent Council of Ministers meeting: media of various stripes, including the international Al-Jazeera news channel, had been confidently reporting that a Council of Ministers meeting – which of course can only be chaired by the President of the Republic – was be held on Aug. 28. There was never any official announcement to this effect, however, and in the end ministers are reported to have gathered without President Bouteflika for a regular and very low-key working meeting under the chairmanship of PM Sellal.
But there is still an urgent need for a Council of Ministers meeting, insofar the constitution requires that all government legislation – including this year’s supplementary finance law and the long-awaited bill to amend the constitution – be discussed and approved by this body before being submitted to parliament. When it finally does take place, the Council of Ministers meeting should provide important clues as to Bouteflika’s physical and political vitality. If, as our source at the Presidency claims, Bouteflika has made a full recovery, it would provide the opportunity to demonstrate this to the media, and the nation at large; should it be followed by the reshuffle predicted by Siwel, this would suggest that Bouteflika has recovered not only his physical but also his political potency. On the other hand, minimal or no photographic coverage of the Council of Ministers would suggest that the President is still in weak health and has made only a token appearance to enable a ‘pro forma’ meeting to be held.
Meanwhile, the commission in charge of drafting the constitional amendments is understood to have submitted its report to the executive branch, with Algerian media reports suggesting that a bill to amend the constitution was to be presented to the Council of Ministers “at the end of August”. Its contents have not yet been officially released, but leaks to the press indicate that the draft does include provisions for the President to appoint a Vice President, who would take over the running of the country should the head of state be incapacitated. This would clearly put whoever is designated Vice President – PM Sellal is currently seen as the most obvious candidate – on track to succeed Bouteflika formally at the end of his current term of office. If, as per our first source, Bouteflika has failed to make an adequate recovery and the DRS is driving the succession process, such a mechanism could conceivably provide a means of easing Bouteflika out and his successor in[2].
Whatever the reasons for the delay in convening the Council of Ministers, the resumption of the legislative process after the summer break will also require the removal of a number of other blockages. Once adopted by the Council of Ministers, government bills must be passed to the Bureau of the National People’s Assembly (lower house of parliament) for inclusion in the schedule of parliamentary debates. However, contrary to usual practice the Assembly went into recess at the end of July without electing a new bureau for the forthcoming autumn session, which begins on Sept. 2. This appears to have been because chronic faction fighting within the FLN, which has just under half the seats in the National People’s Assembly, had effectively made it impossible to hold a vote. In preparation for a particularly busy parliamentary session, not to mention the upcoming presidential election, the FLN needed fixing.
Accordingly, the Interior Ministry has “authorised” (“ordered” would probably be closer to the mark) the party to hold a long overdue Central Committee meeting at which it is supposed to dispense with the provisional leadership that has been in charge since the ouster of Abdelaziz Belkhadem in February and elect a new General Secretary. Former Speaker of parliament Amar Saadani is tipped as the favourite for post, and according to several Algerian media reports enjoys the backing of Bouteflika (Saadani, it is worth remarking, was one of the leading lights of the pro-Bouteflika faction within the FLN in 2003-2004 when the majority of the party stood behind Ali Benflis, and unlike Belkhadem has never been known to express any presidential ambitions of his own). With the CC meeting scheduled for Aug. 29-30, the hope is clearly that this will make it possible for the FLN to put its house in order in time for the opening of the autumn session of parliament on Sept. 2. In the run-up to the meeting, the FLN’s various factions have by and large persisted in their fractious ways. A sudden outbreak of peace and unanimity behind Saadani, however, might be a sign that Bouteflika, having risen from his wheelchair, is once more casting his disciplinal shadow over the former single party.
Foreign Relations
Visiting the Wilaya of Jijel on Aug. 15, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal delivered a speech to a gathering of local representatives of civil society. Addressing the situation on Algeria’s borders and the after-effects of the Arab Spring, his comments gave an unusually clear reflection of the siege menta
lity that has beset Algeria’s leadership since the first tremors of the Arab Spring in late 2010.
“We are,” intoned the Prime Minister, “sitting on a volcano”. The effects of the Arab Spring had been devastating, he argued, leading amongst other things to a climate of civil war in Egypt and an increasingly unstable situation in neighbouring Tunisia. But “there will be no Arab Spring in Algeria. We are working to make sure of that, and we are on the right path.” With upheavals and armed conflict afflicting so many of its neighbours, Algeria had “come under pressure from all sides to take on the role of a regional power” (an apparent allusion to the sollicitations of Washington, and to a lesser extent France). “But our policy is and always has been quite clear, and it is this which has enabled us to maintain the stability of our country”: Algeria remains true to its principled stance of “non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries”, and its only ambition with regard to its neighbours is to “ease tensions, not inflame them”. At the same time, Algeria is “on its guard [and] determined to confront any attempts at destabilisation”, for Algerians “know how precious stability is, especially after having lived through a decade of difficulties that almost threatened the very existence of the Algerian state and the Algerian people”. While “we shall never use force against our own children”, Algeria has the means to counter any attacks on its stability and national security, the Prime Minister warned.
And yet, despite (or indeed because of) the means at its disposal, the Algerian regime finds itself being pulled, volens nolens, into an increasingly interventionist role, notably to the east. An incipient dispute with the Tunisian authorities over wild allegations of DRS manipulation of Tunisia’s violent islamists (see previous report) has been patched up[3], and security cooperation between Algeria, Tunisia and Libya is becoming more organised. At the very end of July, senior officers from the Algerian and Tunisian militaries are reported to have met to plan a common response to the deteriorating situation in the Djebel Chaambi area on the Tunisian side of the border, where a jihadist group had killed nine Tunisian soldiers on July 25. In early August a Tunisian security official told us:
On the military side of things, Tunisian army units in Djebel Chaambi have formed a joint operations room with Algerian army units. The Algerians have extended logistical and intelligence assistance to the Tunisians and mobilised elite units and some 20,000 troops on the border between the two countries, including 7,000 on the Djebel Chaambi sector of the border.
The Algerian press subsequently quoted a Tunisian army spokesperson as describing “the exchange of information between Tunisia and Algeria” as “the key to the success of this operation”. Meanwhile, the Algerian and Libyan governments are setting up a joint commission to coordinate counter-terrorism and anti-smuggling operations following Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan’s visit to Algiers on Aug. 5, and Algiers is also reported to have begun counter-terrorism training programmes with the Tunisian and Libyan militaries.
But this is scarcely a partnership of equals. The 20,000 troops reportedly committed by Algiers to the Tunisian border area is the equivalent of around two thirds of the entire strength of the Tunisian land forces, which are badly overstretched with internal security commitments across the country, while the Libyan army is, if not altogether a fiction, a shaky and unreliable force to say the least. Faced with threats that are increasingly clearly transnational – as emphasised by Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Laareyedh on Aug. 27 when he announced that the Tunisian hardline islamist group Ansar Al-Sharia, held responsible for the murders of two secularist politicians and henceforth considered a terrorist organisation, had pledged allegiance to Abdelmalek Droudkel, leader of Algeria’s AQMI – the Algerian army and security forces are obviously going to be called upon to do a lot of the heavy lifting. It will be increasingly difficult to do so while remaining strictly within Algeria’s borders, as events in Djebel Chaambi have shown.
Meanwhile, events on Algeria’s southern borders, which for a time seemed to be more or less contained, have again taken a worrying turn for Algiers with an outbreak of extremely ugly ethnic violence between Arabs and Tuaregs in the town of Bordj Badji Mokhtar on the border with Mali[4]. The precise circumstances which sparked the bloodletting are hazy (some press reports claimed, probably fancifully, that the two groups “quarrelled over a smuggled arms shipment”, while others indicated that the violence erupted when Arab shop owners killed a Tuareg youth who had opened a store in their area, and others still suggested a petty theft provided the spark). But it is fairly clear that the Bordj Badji Mokhtar violence is, one way or another, an overspill from the conflict in neighbouring Mali. Many, if not most, of the Tuaregs involved in the fighting were refugees from northern Mali[5], who have often been treated by the Algerian authorities with shocking disregard (some told the press that when they sought the Gendarmerie’s protection during the rioting they were told to “go get help from France or Burkina Faso”). Their competition with locals for scarce resources and opportunities to make a living appears to have been exacerbated by a strike by local lorry drivers, on whom the town relies for almost all supplies, in protest at fuel rationing – itself a consequence of the conflict in northern Mali, the Algerian authorities having imposed draconian restrictions on sales of refined products in the area in a bid to dry up supplies of smuggled fuel to AQMI and allied groups across the border.
A source close to the DRS has hinted that the Bord Badji Mokhtar events are seen in Algiers as a worrying manifestation of a broader problem. It is particularly striking that the authorities’ traditional strategy of relying on local notables to maintain the peace in the vast, ethnically diverse south proved largely ineffective in containing the violence – a peace initiative relying on elders of both communities, fostered by the Wali (provincial governor) of Adrar, brought only a short lull in the fighting – forcing the gendarmerie to bring in as many as 1,500 reinforcements from Algiers to separate the camps. Although the violence appears now to have died down, the Bordj Badji Mokhtar events may be seen as another symptom of a longer-term trend, on which we have commented in the past, whereby the DRS, a past master in manipulating the tribes and clans of the Sahara, seems to be progressively losing its hand, first in northern Mali and Niger, and now within Algeria itself.
By contrast, Algeria’s western border with Morocco may seem relatively stable, but tension has been rising here too over the past months, as we have observed on several occasions, as Algeria moves to crack down on smuggling of Moroccan cannabis into Algeria and subsidised Algerian fuel into Morocco. As well as increasing patrols along the border and restricting supplies of fuel to retailers in nearby areas, the authorities have now begun to dig a trench along sections of the border – an expedient which, like the wall of shipping containers hurriedly built along sections of the border with Libya earlier this year, smacks of improvisation, if not desperation. Such measures do, however, seem to be having an effect, in particular on fuel smuggling – to the point where drastic fuel shortages have been reported in eastern Morocco, impacting on the local economy (including the crucial agricultural sector, which it would seem had become reliant on cheap Algerian diesel to run tractors and other farm machinery). This, understandably enough, is fuelling considerable bitterness and even political tensions in eastern Morocco: Orientale
province is reported to be “on the brink of rioting” as a result of the fuel shortages, and a pharmacy belonging to the mayor of the provincial capital Oujda (a member of the nationalist Istiqlal Party) has been burnt down by local residents enraged by his blandishments in the press about Moroccans having “no need of Algeria to get by”. At the same time, the crackdown on drug smuggling is producing ever more hauls of Moroccan cannabis, often quite far from the border (6.4 tonnes of sifted cannabis resin were seized by the Algerian army near Hassi R’mel in the Wilaya of Laghouat on Aug. 19), generating ever more virulent coverage in the Algerian media[6].
This theme has also been picked up on by Polisario and its supporters, with Pierre Galand, the Belgian chairman of the European Coordinating Committee of Saharawi support groups (EUCOCO) proclaiming from the platform of the summer school for SADR cadres near Algiers in August that “Morocco is taking on a very serious responsibility in threatening to flood [Algeria] with tons of drugs in an attempt to influence its position on the Western Sahara conflict”. In a similar vein, Speaker of the Saharawi National Council Khatri Addouh stated from the same platform that:
Morocco harbors terrorists and criminal groups which are active in northern Mali and parts of Africa, terrorists it is preparing to carry out attacks in order to destabilize the region and hinder the process of settling the Saharawi question in accordance with international law. The Moroccan authorities were behind the establishment of the terrorist group MUJAO, in order to weaken the position of the Saharawi state, [as was shown by MUJAO’s] kidnapping of Western nationals from the refugee camps [in Tindouf] and its attacks on the interests of certain countries in the region, including Algeria.
To be sure, neither Galand nor Addouh were speaking for the Algerian government. But their remarks – made at an event held under the watchful eye of the DRS, and reported uncritically by Algeria’s official news agency APS – can certainly be said to partake of a general climate of Morocco-bashing in the Algerian media that the Algerian authorities, for the time being, show no particular sign of wanting to restrain.
Security
Jihadist activity, which had been running at relatively low levels earlier in the summer, spiked in the last week of July and has remained high throughout August. With 25 security incidents reported, including 13 jihadist operations, in the period 01/08 to 25/08, this August may in fact have seen the heaviest jihadist activity since May 2012. Furthermore, whereas in July AQMI used only bombings (see previous report), the past few weeks have seen it revert to its usual mix of operations, including shootings and fake checkpoints (albeit with a marked preference for remote-controlled bomb attacks).
Algiers was calm throughout the month, despite a rash of threats of violence against diplomatic missions. The US embassy and consulates in Algeria remained closed for several days in early August in response to a terror alert covering most of the Middle East and North Africa. And on August 21 Algerian daily Echourouk quoted the Egyptian ambassador to Algeria as saying that the authorities had tightened security around Egyptian diplomatic facilities after diplomats received faxes and phone calls from unknown individuals — some styling themselves the “Amazigh Islamist Front” — threatening “physical elimination” of embassy staff and attacks against the facilities “similar to what happened in Benghazi, Libya” (where the Egyptian consulate had been hit by a bomb blast on Aug. 17 in apparent retaliation for the crackdown by the Egyptian army on the Muslim Brotherhood). The Egyptian embassy in Tunisia reportedly received similar messages. These threats do not, however, appear to emanate from organised groups capable of following them up with action: there is no evidence that the hitherto unheard of Amazigh (i.e. Kabyle or Berber) Islamist Front actually exists, and it is conceivable that it may have been an embellishment by Echourouk, which has acquired a certain reputation for Kabyle-baiting.
Kabylia itself, meanwhile, saw a sharp upsurge of AQMI activity, with nine operations recorded between July 29 and August 25, up from only four in the preceding month and four in June. And while jihadist activity in Kabylia over the period of May-July had been concentrated in the northwest and centre of the wilaya of Bouira, over the past few weeks it has spread to other parts of Bouira and across the wilayas of Boumerdès and Tizi Ouzou.
The only incident reported in the oil and gas producing regions came around August 11 when, according to El-Khabar, the army and Gendarmerie tightened security and launched a search and destroy mission around the towns of Ouargla and Chott (wilaya of Ouragla), hunting for jihadists who had reportedly crossed in from Libya with the intention of attacking the prison in Ouargla to help MUJAO members held there escape. The authorities were also investigating escape attempts by the prisoners themselves, claimed the newspaper, adding that “judicial sources” would neither deny nor confirm the report. The situation around the prison “appeared perfectly calm” on August 11, “with no trace of exceptional security measures”, according to El Khabar, whose story comes in the wake of (and may even have been inspired by) a wave of attacks on prisons in Iraq and Yemen by local Al-Qaeda affiliates in late July, in which dozens of jihadist prisoners were freed.
To the east, on the border with Tunisia, there have been fewer incursions since the massive joint Algerian-Tunisian operation against jihadists in Tunisia’s Djebel Chaambi was launched in late July, probably because of the heavy presence of Algerian security forces in the area. The only incident of note came on August 2 when Algerian security forces, according to El-Mihwar (04/08), intercepted and killed three jihadists who were trying to cross the border on foot from Tunisia to Algeria in the Bir El-Ater sector (wilaya of Tébessa). They were carrying suicide belts and are thought to have been planning to attack an Algerian border post. The slain jihadists were said to belong to the Djebel Chaambi group.
The southern borders, on the other hand, saw more jihadist activity than in the previous months – suggesting, perhaps, that with its heavy new commitments on the border with Tunisia, the Algerian military is becoming dangerously stretched and may not be able to sustain a prolonged lockdown along all the country’s borders simultaneously. The security forces on Aug. 3-4 intercepted a jihadist group, believed to be MUJAO members, at a point near Bordj Baji Mokhtar on the border with Mali. An army helicopter destroyed five offroaders, killed five jihadists and recovered five kalashnikovs. It is believed the jihadists were “on their way to Libya to arrange a weapons shipment”. As of August 3, according to El-Khabar quoting “reliable security sources,” the Algerian army stepped up security on the border and put units on alert around Bordj Baji Mokhtar after receiving information that a group of seven jihadists had sneaked in from Mali with the intention of carrying out suicide bombings inside Algeria before the end of Ramadan (Aug. 8). Then on August 6, “informed security sources” told El-Mihwar that the Gendarmerie had foiled a suicide bombing attack against an observation post in the wilaya of Tamanrasset, near the border with Mali. Two MUJAO jihadists were detained and “a huge quantity of explosives, up to 680 kg, seized”. El-Mihwar later reported that the army on August 22 foiled an attempt by AQMI to smuggle weapons into Algeria, probably from Libya, close to the Niger-Libya-Algeria tripoint. Three army and Border Guard units detained five smugglers and seized a shipment of 18 machine guns, 10 RPGs and “three anti-aircraft missiles”[7].
Finally, in a potentially very significant development beyond Algeria’s borders, MUJAO and Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Moulathhamoun Brigade issued a statement via Mauritanian news agency ANI on August 22 announcing the merger of the two groups into a new outfit, named Al-Mourabitoun[8]. Both Belmokhtar and MUJAO’s leader Ahmad Ould Amer “stepped aside” and pledged allegiance to a new emir of the unified group, whom they did not name but described as “a veteran of the Afghan jihad against the Soviets in the 80s and against the Americans in 2002 [who] came to Azawad a while ago and was one of the leaders of the fight against France”. The statement continues with a litany of threats against the jihadists’ enemies, with a special emphasis on France and French interests in North Africa.
A day later, Belmokhtar gave an interview to ANI in which he said the merger decision was “unanimous” and explained that Al-Mourabitoun aims to “unite all jihadis, indeed all Muslims, from the Nile to the [Atlantic] ocean”. The new outfit, he added, “remains committed to its pledge of allegiance to Al-Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan and we reaffirm our allegiance to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri and to Al-Qaeda’s way of jihad and its political and military vision as laid down by the late Sheikh Osama bin Laden may God bless his soul”. Belmokhtar explained his decision to step aside as emir by his belief that “it is now time to let a new generation of leaders take charge” – a somewhat disingenuous argument, since a “veteran of the Afghan jihad against the Soviets” would be at least as old as if not older than Belmokhtar himself (born 1972). Indeed, it seems likely that Belmokhtar, who is now the most experienced surviving jihadist leader in the Sahara-Sahel region, remains the de facto emir of the group and that his “resignation” is little more than window-dressing. Belmokhtar’s rhetoric suggests that he is positioning the new group to compete with, or even supplant, the much weakened AQMI as the main Al-Qaeda franchise in the region. It remains to be seen how the remnants of AQMI’s Sahara branch, its leadership in Kabylia and the Al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan will react to this.
END
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[1] Laylat Al-Qadr, or the ‘night of destiny’: the date on which, according to Islamic tradition, the first verses of the Holy Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
[2] On the other hand, it is worth recalling that the source at the Presidency did suggest in June that Bouteflika, intent on standing for re-election in 2014, wanted the constitution amended to include an appointed Vice President, which would give him the possibility of bowing out in the middle of his fourth term and handing over to his designated successor.
[3] At the end of July, Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia’s ruling Ennahda party, issued a statement stressing the “importance of relations with neighbouring countries, first and foremost Algeria” and firmly condemning rumours of Algerian involvement in destabilising Tunisia that had been propagated by press and social media close to Ennahda. This was followed on Aug. 1 by a very similar communiqué from the Tunisian Foreign Ministry, and on Aug. 6 Foreign Minister Othman Jarandi and Defence Minister Rachid Sebbagh flew to Algiers for talks with the Algerian government, chiefly centering on security cooperation.
[4] Clashes between the Arab tribe of Barabiche and the Tuareg tribe of Idnan broke out on Aug. 14, with a pitched battle raging in the main street of the town for several hours before the security forces intervened. Six people were killed and dozens wounded. Violence flared up again on Aug. 19, again leaving several dead and dozens wounded. Officially the death count of the whole episode is ten, although some press accounts have suggested that in reality more than 40 people were killed.
[5] Algerian daily Echorouk (21/08) reported that the army on August 19 intercepted ten offroaders at the border with Mali carrying Idnan tribesmen who were apparently on their way to Bordj Baji Mokhtar to “support their cousins” in the fight against the Barabiche. The army “dealt with them peacefully” after they were found to be armed with no more than sticks.
[6] “Morocco just will not stop pouring its poison into Algeria,” screeched Algerie1.com, a news site understood to be close to the DRS. Commenting on the economic and social crisis in eastern Morocco caused by the crackdown on smuggling of subsidised Algerian products, the same outlet commented: “This just goes to show how the illegal exportation of Algerian fuel and food contributes to the stability of the Kingdom, which nonetheless has no hesitation in using its diplomatic and media machine against Algeria, [seen as no more than] a milch cow.”
[7] This is the first time the threat of anti-aircraft missile smuggling – formerly a leitmotiv of the Algerian press’ reporting of security incidents on the southern and south-eastern borders – has been mentioned since October 2012.
[8]
Literally “people of the garrisons,” a name given to fighters who manned the border outposts of the early Muslim empires. Later it became the name of a Berber Muslim dynasty that ruled Morocco, Muslim Spain and parts of what is today Algeria and Mauritania in the 11th-12th centuries, known in the West as the Almoravids.
