The announced end of the Barkhane military operation led by France in the Sahel and the Sahara with allied armies is relaunching a strategic debate in Algeria, Africa’s second military power and sponsor of the peace agreement in Mali.
Algeria intends to play a more active role in the Sahel, but will it go so far as to deploy troops outside its borders, as henceforth authorized by its Constitution? President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday, July 9 that France would begin its withdrawal from northern Mali by the end of the year, and Paris is making no secret of its interest in seeing Algeria become more involved in the region.
After more than eight years of massive engagement, the Barkhane force – the most important foreign operation of the French army (5,100 men) – will disappear in favor of a tightened device, refocused on counterterrorism operations and support for local armies in combat, around an international alliance involving Europeans.
Since 2012 and the outbreak of independence and jihadist rebellions, Mali has been plunged into a war that has left thousands dead, civilians and combatants, despite the intervention of Barkhane, UN (Minusma), and African forces.
” France can no longer manage the situation in Mali,” said the director of the Algerian Institute for Strategic and Global Studies (INESG), Abdelaziz Medjahed. ” It failed because of its ideas of the ex-colonialist state which it still advocates and the unpopularity of local regimes,” said this retired general.
Mali remains the scene of attacks by groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda (some of whose leaders are Algerians) and the Islamic State, and violence from other armed actors, self-defense militias, or criminal gangs, who extended to neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso.
Towards a diplomatic return of Algeria?
Algeria aims to become again a key player in the crisis in Mali, its southern neighbor, with which it shares 1,400 km of borders and which it considers to be its geostrategic depth.
“To resolve the problem in northern Mali, the State must be redeployed there. Via the Algiers agreements, we are there to help Bamako”
Abdelmadjid Tebboune, President of Algeria
“The solution in Mali will be 90% Algerian”, repeats President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. Favoring the diplomatic map and political dialogue, Algiers took a very active part in the peace agreement signed in 2015 with the independence rebellion to end the war in Mali and still participates in the meetings of the Monitoring Committee (CSA).
The return to Foreign Affairs of Ramtane Lamamra, a veteran of multilateral diplomacy, very involved in Africa, signals the desire of Algiers to regain control after its obliteration in recent years in the region.
A constitutional amendment, adopted in November, allows Algeria to intervene in foreign operations, within the framework of multilateral peacekeeping missions. “The Algerian Constitution now authorizes this type of intervention, but the solution is not there”, tempered President Tebboune in an interview with the weekly Le Point.
” To solve the problem in northern Mali, the State must be redeployed there. Via the Algiers agreements, we are there to help Bamako “, he pleaded.
A strong influence in northern Mali
For Mabrouk Kahi, professor of political science at the University of Ouargla (south), an intervention in Mali is ” unlikely ” because Algeria is ” always very cautious, a fortiori when it comes to sending forces military abroad “.
I don’t imagine that after all this time, the Algerians will change their policy of non-intervention. The status quo suits them.
Reda El Yamouni, researcher in international relations
” The activity of Algerian diplomacy is currently frozen. It had relied heavily on (the transitional president) Bao Ndaw but the putsch has muddied the waters, ” notes Mr. Kahi. Mr. Bao Ndaw was overthrown in a coup led in May by the new strongman, Colonel Assimi Goïta. Still, Algeria retains a strong influence in northern Mali.
“Even if, on the security side, Algerians are neither too visible nor too involved, they must be aware of everything that is happening there, for their own safety”, underlines Reda El Yamouni, the researcher at the Institute. Dutch for international relations Clingendael. “They have networks and access,” he says.
In fact, there are family or ethnic links between communities in northern Mali and southern Algeria. And the Algerians have an economic and commercial weight in the region. In Timbuktu, Gao, or Kidal, the markets depend on Algerian imports (sodas, rice, dates, etc.)
” I don’t imagine that after all this time, the Algerians will change their policy of non-intervention.” The status quo suits them, predicts the Clingendael researcher. However, ” whenever we needed Algeria, she responded “, recalls the former Malian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tiébilé Dramé.
