On January 22, 2025, U.S. Marine Corps Gen Michael Langley, Commander of U.S. Africa Command, and General Saïd Chanegriha, Algerian Minister Delegate to the Minister of National Defense and Chief of Staff to the National People's Army, signed a Military Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
The U.S. Africa Command's website stated: "The visit and signing of the MOU between the United States and Algeria illustrate our two countries' shared vision to strengthen regional and international peace and stability through strategic dialogue."[1]
The following is a reminder of the Algerian regime's disruptive role in its own country and in the region. Authoritative reports show that Algeria cannot be considered a reliable partner in the fight against terror and cannot be treated as a partner of the West, because of its alliances with the so called "Axis of Evil," in particular Iran and Russia.
It is worth noting that in 2012, the media outlet SIWEL alleged that Algeria, along with Qatar, financed the Islamist group Ansar Al-Din in Northern Mali.[2] Furthermore, it is worth reminding that on June 25, 2012, the Algerian media reported that an Ansar Al-Din mission was received in Algiers by then Algerian President Abelaziz Bouteflika. According to the Azawadi news agency, Toumast Pres, the Algerian authorities also stated that they would only treat fighters belonging to Ansar Al-Din, and not those from the secular movement MNLA.[3]
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune with former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, September 2023. (Source: facebook.com/AlgerianPresidency)
Below is an overview of articles analyzing Algeria's disruptive policies in the region:
See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 648, Algeria's Elections – President Tebboune Represents 'The Most Dangerous Totalitarianism,' By Anna Mahjar-Barducci, September 9, 2024
On September 8, 2024, Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected for a second mandate as Algeria's president with 94.7 percent of the vote, following an election boycotted by a part of the opposition The Algerian media outlet Le Matin d'Algérie described Tebboune as a "mythomaniac" and as a "man who embodies the antithesis of democracy," stating that September 7 elections are nothing but a "parody."
Tebboune's legacy of his first mandate (2019-2024) as president is constituted by "226 prisoners of conscience, dozens of Algerians who flee Algeria every day on makeshift boats, 49 people sentenced to death, unsustainable inflation, and a political scene anesthetized by terror." Hence, "Tebboune can embody neither hope nor change. He is the embodiment of the most perilous paralysis for the country," "Le Matin d'Algérie" stated. In fact, "Le Matin d'Algérie" wrote that to vote for Tebboune means to choose "the most dangerous totalitarianism." It is therefore not surprising that, under Tebboune, Algeria keeps with its political tradition of aligning itself with anti-liberal powers to counter the collective West. An example of this is Algeria's relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune with former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Algiers. (Source: Dzair-tube.dz)
See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 645, Former Algerian Army Colonel On Algerian Secret Services' Responsibility For The Assassination Of Algerian President Boudiaf, By Anna Mahjar-Barducci, September 3, 2024
Even now, over 30 years later, the full truth about the assassination of Algerian President Mohamed Boudiaf has still not come out.
The book Chronique Des Années De Sang ("Chronicle Of The Years Of Blood," Éditions Denoël) by Mohammed Samraoui, a former colonel in the Algerian army who defected in 1996 and who has since been living in political asylum in Germany, is probably one of the best testimonies on the assassination of Boudiaf.
Following the landslide victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in the first round of the December 1991 legislative elections, the army urged the regime to annul the second round. Thus, as reported by Samraoui, a war was launched by Algerian generals to safeguard the interests of a totalitarian regime.
Samraoui reported that in order to provide legal cover to the coup d'état that deposed President Chadli Bendjedid in January 1992 – a coup in which Samraoui himself took part – on January 12, the High Security Council (Haut Conseil de sécurité, HCS), an institution controlled by the army, declared that it was impossible to continue the electoral process. Two days later, the HCS decided that the state would be run for two years by a new body, the High Council of State (Haut Comité d'Etat, HCE), a "political fiction" created for the occasion and whose presidency was entrusted to Boudiaf. Boudiaf returned to Algeria on January 16; this date is no coincidence, as the second round was scheduled for the same date.
In fact, on January 10, 1992, Member of the High Council of State Ali Haroun (1927-), on the orders of the generals, went to Morocco to meet Boudiaf and to persuade him to return to Algeria. Boudiaf, a founding member of the National Liberation Front (FLN), had founded the Socialist Revolution Party (PRS) after Algeria's independence, but his opposition to Ben Bella, Algeria's first president, had forced him into exile in 1963. He spent 28 years in exile in France and then in Morocco, where he devoted himself to running his brick factory in the Moroccan city of Kénitra.
Yet Boudiaf, who was supposed to guarantee the historical legitimacy of power, was not the "puppet" the generals wanted. On June 29, 1992, on an official visit to Annaba unaccompanied by any senior regime figures, during a speech being broadcast live on television from the Maison de la Culture, President Mohamed Boudiaf was assassinated by an officer of his bodyguards.
Samraoui wrote in his book: "The assassin was an officer of the Special Intervention Group (Groupement d'Intervention Spéciale, GIS), a unit of the Department of Intelligence and Security (Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité, DRS). He was Second Lieutenant (sous-lieutenant) Lembarek Boumaarafi, known as Abdelhak; he had joined the president's security team at the last minute, after having been accepted mere days earlier by Smaïn Lamari, head of the Counterintelligence Directorate (Direction du contre-espionnage, DCE, a branch of the Department of Intelligence and Security, DRS), at the Antar Center.
Algerian president Mohamed Boudiaf
Samraoui's book
See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 644, Former Algerian Army Colonel On How Algeria's Secret Services Manipulated Islamist Groups During The 'Black Decade,' By Anna Mahjar-Barducci, August 30, 2024
What really happened during the Algerian Civil War of 1992-2002? According to Algerian media, during the "Black Decade," the Algerian army mobilized to counter the Islamists. But the truth may be different.
Mohammed Samraoui, a former Algerian army colonel who deserted in 1996 and has since been in political exile in Germany, experienced firsthand the "diabolical chain of events" that plunged Algeria into horror. He wrote his book Chronique des années de sang (Chronicle of the Years of Blood, Éditions Denoël) to show how a "handful of corrupt generals" burned their country to preserve their privileges.
In the book, Samraoui, whom I met in a secret location in 2009, stated that he has no intention of denying or justifying the crimes committed by the Islamists. Nevertheless, in his eyes, "the Algerian generals and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) leaders share responsibility for the Algerian tragedy."
Mohammed Samraoui
See Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 844, Algeria: A Prolonged State Of Agony, By Anna Mahjar-Barducci, June 8, 2012
The FLN of today is not the same party that fought courageously against the French colonizer five decades ago. What remains is a group of apparatchiks constantly fighting each other when they're not tending to the businesses – companies, land, farms – with which they have rewarded themselves from their positions of power. Real power, in fact, is held by the military's Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS). In this regard, Algeria is similar to Pakistan and Syria, where the secret police seem to call the shots.
*Anna Mahjar-Barducci is a Senior Research Fellow at MEMRI.
[1] Africom.mil/article/35698/africom-commander-signs-memorandum-of-understanding-with-algerian-ministry-of-national-def, January 23, 2025.
[2] See Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 848, The MNLA's Fight For A Secular State Of Azawad, By Anna Mahjar-Barducci, June 19, 2012.
[3] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 854, The Fight For A Secular State Of Azawad – Part II: Fighting Terror In The Sahel, By Anna Mahjar-Barducci, July 4, 2012.
