Morocco continues its strategy of tension with Algeria. While relations between the two countries have been broken since last summer, the Moroccan authorities do not seem to be opting for de-escalation.
Things got worse with Morocco, President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune judged on February 15.
An additional sign of this aggravation was the creation of a new military zone by the Moroccan army on the borders with Algeria. The information that was given by the Moroccan press has just been made by the review of the royal armed forces.
This “East” zone is the second of its kind after the South zone which covers the occupied territories of Western Sahara.
The new Moroccan military zone extends along the border with Algeria, over more than 1,500 kilometers. To direct it, King Mohamed VI chose an officer who served for a long time in Western Sahara, General Mohamed Al Miqdad. This was installed last January, indicates the magazine of the Moroccan army.
The creation of the zone resulted in the deployment of anti-aircraft defense systems, drones, and radars from Morocco.
“Rest assured: Algeria will only wage war in self-defense”
Despite repeated Moroccan provocations, notably the assassination of three Algerian traders last November on the border between Western Sahara and Mauritania, Algiers has always ensured that it was not seeking confrontation with Morocco.
“Rest assured: Algeria will only go to war in self-defense. Algeria has experienced too much of the horrors of the colonial war to wish to engage in an armed confrontation with a neighboring country,” Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said in an interview with RFI in early February.
“We must ask ourselves whether those who develop military cooperation with foreign military powers that have nothing to do with the North African region are not those who are betting on the worst,” added the head of Algerian diplomacy, alluding to the rapprochement between Morocco and Israel which resulted in particular in the signing of a military cooperation protocol between the two countries.
