Shadow of Polisario, Algerian DRS Hangs over Kidnappings in In Amenas

POLISARIO CONFIDENTIAL

Written by Khalid Ibrahim Khaled

The kidnapping of foreigners in the In Amenas gas and oil facility has not revealed all its secrets yet. According to the first elements that have filtered from Western intelligence services, the shadow of the leaders of the Polisario and the Algerian military security and intelligence service (DRS) hang over the operation. If at the end of this suicide operation carried out in Algerian territory by a large group of terrorists, Algerian Prime Minister was quick to reveal the Algerian, Tunisian, Egyptian or Libyan nationality of the attackers, he on the contrary skipped over the identity of the leader of the terrorist commando which attacked the plant and took foreign workers as hostages. But the reason behind “this omission” is quite simple. The commando leader is actually a Sahrawi who served in the ranks of the Polisario Front. Revealing his identity would have exposed not only the separatist movement’s leadership but would have also unveiled the real tactics used by the Algerian power and the Algerian army generals who seek to perpetuate the Sahara conflict to impose their leadership on the whole region of North Africa and the Sahel. The DRS has thrown its full weight to convince Algerian civilian authorities to present the head of the commando, Lamine Bouchneb, aka Tahar, as an Algerian or Mauritanian national to conceal his membership to the Polisario Front. A French strategic studies center, quoting sources close to the French intelligence services, confirmed the real identity of the leader of the fundamentalist cell which is behind the In Amenas kidnappings.

To definitely cover up the truth, the Algerian army killed Tahar during the assault to free the hostages. Algerian Abu Al-Baraa Aljzairi and Mauritanian Abdallahi Ould Hmeida were among the other kidnappers killed during the assault. According to the same sources, Tahar was leading a terrorist cell known as the “movement of the Sahara children for Islamic justice.” Other valuable information was revealed by a Moroccan Sahrawi activist, Abdelmajid Belghazal, a former anchor of the SNRT regional TV channel in Laayoune. According to his testimony, Lamine Bouchneb was indeed born into a Western Sahara well-known family. He left the Sahara territory in the ’70s to join the ranks of the Polisario. Years later, Tahar escaped the Tindouf camps and got involved in cigarettes trafficking. It was through this trafficking that he came across Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the terrorist emirs operating in the Sahel strip, nicknamed “Mister Marlboro”, as he was at the head of an extensive network of cigarettes and drugs smuggling. A strange story that is very embarrassing to the Algerian intelligence services.