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Algeria Closes the Airspace with Morocco and Activates the Maximum Alert on Shared Borders.

Algeria declares maximum alert status on its borders with Morocco and closes airspace.

Algiers today decided to “review” its relations with Morocco, which it accuses of being involved in the devastating fires in the north of the country, according to a statement from the Algerian presidency.

“The incessant hostile acts perpetrated by Morocco against Algeria require a review of relations between the two countries and intensify security controls on the western border,” explained the presidential statement to which ECSAHARAUI had access.

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This decision was made during an extraordinary meeting of the Algerian High-Security Council (HCS) chaired by the head of state, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, dedicated to assessing the situation after the large forest fires that killed at least 80 people.

Algiers officially accuses a France-based terrorist organization (MAK) of being involved in the fires. This movement along with another Islamist movement based in London is illegal and was classified on May 18 by the Algerian authorities as “terrorist organizations”.

The HCS speaks of “intensification of security controls on the border with Morocco.” Clearly, the army is on high alert to face any eventuality following the threat of the Israeli Foreign Minister Yaรฏr Lapid, who, from Casablanca, spoke calling a “disturbing Algerian-Iranian alliance”.

In addition, according to the Algerian portal Algรฉrie Patriotique, it assures that Algeria has decided to close the airspace and cut all the links between Algiers and Casablanca. An air link that had never, until then, been suspended, even after the closure of land borders in 1994 at the height of the diplomatic crisis between the two countries. 

Moroccan hostility against Algeria has been on the rise and the Algerian authorities have always tried to remain calm to prevent the crisis from taking on other dimensions, but Algeria’s cautious and rational attitude seems to have been seen as a sign of weakness on the part of the decision-makers in Rabat, who turned to the Zionist entity as a “political refuge” with which they made an agreement that consists of formalizing the already existing relations between both historical allies.

Long before normalization, according to the Israeli media, the reestablishment of ties between the two countries is the result of a request from Morocco and not the other way around, as has been revealed. Algeria began to perceive an aggressive attitude on the part of the Kingdom of Morocco against its territorial integrity, and last month during the summit of the Non-Aligned Countries, the representative of Morocco in the UN explicitly declared war on Algeria, taking up the cause of the movement. separatist MAK, months after the latter was considered a terrorist organization by Algiers. 

The relationship between MAK and Rachad and the Moroccan secret services has been exposed for many years, but the Algerian security authorities appear to have waited to gather enough evidence to react.

The fires are the trigger for the crisis.

The fires that devastated several thousand hectares and killed 80 people, especially in the Tizi Ouzou region, were the trigger for the Algerian anger that does not seem to end with this episode.

The Algerian High-Security Council announced a series of arrests and the search for elements belonging to the two organizations (MAK and Rachad) but did not elaborate on the fate of the brains established abroad, namely the leaders of Rachad. , London-based Aarbi Zitout, Geneva-based Mourad Dhina, among others, and Ferhat Mehenni, a refugee in France.

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