Washington / Morocco Board News– A declaration by Algeria’s Interior Minister regarding the abduction of three European aid workers in Hassi Rabuni, at The Western Sahara Polisario separatist group camps, near the Algerian city of Tindouf, is raising serious questions about the extent of the Algerian Army’s control and security role over its own territory on the Moroccan borders.
In a statement published by the reliable Algerian Website TSA, Mr. Dahou Ould Kablia declared that “the kidnapping did not happen in an area under [Algeria] control. It happened in an area that is beyond our control and which is under the supervision of the organization [known as] the Polisario. We have no comment because we have virtually no information.”
Several Algerian commentators were infuriated to hear Mr. Ould Kablia declaring that a swap of the Algerian territory is under the control of a “foreign” militia. The Western sahara Polisario separatist group is becoming more of security liability than a useful pawn in Algeria’s undeclared war on Morocco’s control of the Western Sahara. As an Algerian journalist observed, we “rented” Tindouf to the Polisario and now the Sahrawis are becoming “the landlords”
The territory in question is an area in South-West Algeria where about 90,000 refugees -from the former Spanish colony known as the Western Sahara Southern Morocco and Mauritania- live under the harsh control of the Polisario fighters backed by the Algerian military. Observers of the Moroccan-Algerian conflict over the Western Sahara were surprised to hear a high-ranking Algerian official abdicating Algeria’s security task over such strategic military area to a hired militia.
In fact, Mr. Dahou Ould Kablia statement is not a revelation but rather a “diplomatic faux pas” that uncovers the uneasiness of the Algerian authorities with the growing influence of The AL-Qaeda ‘s North African branch (AQMI) in the Polisario camps and exposes the weakness of Algerian Military Security (DRS) control mechanisms over the Polisario security apparatus. The DRS is supposed to gather intelligence in the camps and watch over the leadership of the Polisario to avoid “unpleasant surprise” such as a Polisario assisted AQMI operation at the heart of an Algerian military zone near the Moroccan borders. According the Website “Maghreb-intelligence”, the chief of Algeria’s Armed Forces, Major General Gaïd Saleh, summoned the Polisario chief, Mohamed Abdelaziz, to Algiers for “consultations”. The Website, citing informed sources, reported that the Algerian General chastised Abdelaziz for his militia’s negligence in securing their camps and protecting foreign nationals present on Polisario territory.
Furthermore, the Algerian General instructed the head of the Polisario militia to retract his remark accusing AQMI for being behind the kidnapping. Faced with overwhelming evidence of Polisario fightersinvolvement in several AQMI operations, the Algerian government is weary of images of AQMI fighters roaming around Algerian soil with ease and armed supports. The suggestion of Polisario backed AQMI operations in Algeria and the Sahel harms the DRS carefully choreographed image of an Algerian Army fighting terrorism in the Sahel.
In line with the instruction of his handlers within the DRS, Polisario chief went on Algerian state TV to retract his earlier accusations against AQMI. In an interview with Channel 3, Mr. Mohamed Abdelaziz declined to name the group behind the abductions of the three Europeans in the camps under his control. While the Algerian government continues to portray the AQMI-Polisario connection as a Moroccan plot to discredit the Polisario and question Algeria’s anti-terror war, actions on the ground solidify the thesis of a close cooperation between some elements of the Polisario and the terror networks in the Sahel and the Algerian Sahara.
