After having condemned the putsch against President Mohamed Bazoum, Algeria reiterates its support for the latter while warning against an operation of force to dislodge the putschists.
Algeria is following the situation in Niger as one monitors milk on the fire. On Tuesday August 1, she warned against foreign intervention in Niger, as the ultimatum issued by ECOWAS expires on Sunday August 6 . The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms in a press release Algeria’s “deep attachment” to “the return to constitutional order in Niger and respect for the requirements of the rule of law. »
Increased insecurity and adversity
On Wednesday July 26, a few hours after the announcement of the putsch against Mohamed Bazoum, the Algerian government had already condemned the coup and demanded that an immediate end be put to “this unacceptable attack on the constitutional order and this violation grave requirements of the rule of law”. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has instructed his head of diplomacy, Ahmed Attaf, to meet with his Nigerien counterpart Hassoumi Massaoudou.
By renewing its support for Mohamed Bazoum as “legitimate president”, the Algerian government specifies that “the return to constitutional order must imperatively be accomplished by peaceful means which will avoid brotherly Niger and the whole of the region more insecurity and instability and to our peoples more adversity and hardship. »
Highly explosive situation
The prospect of a military intervention in Niger, to force the putschists to restore Mohamed Bazoum in his functions, worries Algiers. “Algeria warns and calls for caution and restraint in the face of the intentions of foreign military interventions which are, unfortunately, considered as possible and usable options when they are only complicating factors and worsening of the current crisis,” the Foreign Ministry statement added.
A coup d’etat in Niger and, from there, a highly explosive situation, is the last thing the Algerian authorities want in this region of the Sahel. With chaos in Libya and Mali destabilized since the coup against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in August 2020, another neighbor is plunging into insecurity and instability. A neighbor with whom Algeria shares 951 kilometers of borders.
Jihadism, trafficking, illegal immigration…
This new situation in Niamey would indeed put the Algerian army and the security services under new pressures, when they already have a lot to do with the jihadist groups and smugglers who rage in these vast desert expanses, but also with the illegal immigration networks.
According to the NGO Alarm Phone Sahara, Algeria returned more than 11,000 people to Niger between January and April 2023. These expulsions are carried out on the basis of a security cooperation agreement signed in October 2021, considered strategic for the two neighboring countries – it provides for cooperation in the fight against terrorism, cross-border crime and organized crime.
In the process, a twinning memorandum between the police academies of Tamanrasset and Niamey was concluded to train agents and executives of the Nigerien police, the head of national security, Farid Bencheikh, underlining while the Algerian police undertook to provide support to its counterpart in Niger in terms of basic and specialized training and logistical support.
What about the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline?
This security agreement came after the visit, in July 2021, to Algiers, of President Mohamed Bazoum, who spoke at length with his Algerian counterpart. During this visit by the Nigerien president, the two parties agreed to accelerate the Nigeria-Niger-Algeria (Nigal) or “Trans-Saharan” gas pipeline project, which also aims to supply Europe via the Sahel. A 13 billion dollar project, carried by Algeria, which runs over 4,100 kilometers and could transport up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
This coup in Niger and its regional consequences could therefore compromise this project and also threaten the activities of the Algerian oil group Sonatrach in Niger, where it has several exploration permits, in particular the Kafra block, near the border with Algeria.
