Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has played the devil’s advocate before the UN by seeking to exculpate his country of harboring a terrorist militia that threatens regional security in North Africa and the Sahel.
In a message during a high-level segment of the Security Council on countering terrorism and violent extremism, at UN headquarters in New York, in the presence of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Algerian head of state has tried to create a diversion by addressing the Sahara conflict in which his country is involved by supporting the terrorist band of Polisario which is holding thousands of Sahrawis hostage.
“The terrorist threat must in no way be equated with the legitimate struggle of the peoples under occupation to regain their legitimate rights, first and foremost their inalienable and imprescriptible right to self-determination and independence enshrined in international legality”said the Algerian president in his message.
His intervention was mainly aimed at preventing his country from being classified by the United States on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Algeria, not only because of its ties with the Polisario, but also with its ties with Iran, which arms members of the armed group with drones, while maintaining proven ties with Russia, came close to being listed on this list at the end of 2022.
The Algerian regime had then distanced itself from Russia during votes before the UN and had hidden joint military exercises on the borders with Morocco. Along with this, the regime had sought the protection of France which organized a visit by the French government to Algiers.
However, his message insidiously passed on by diverting the subject of the debates to disguise Algerian expansionism, also wanted to exculpate the Polisario, which Algeria uses and finances to destabilize Morocco and take its Sahara. The Polisario is indeed close to being classified as a terrorist organization.
Algeria’s expansionist tendencies in the Moroccan Sahara were revealed and proven recently during an interview with the Algerian president on a Qatari channel. He then told the journalist “let me give you a scoop”claiming that Franco, the former Spanish dictator who occupied the Sahara, wanted “give the Sahara to Algeria”.
Tebboune’s message was also a message of response to Moroccan diplomacy and the Moroccan security authorities who challenge the international community on the links between the Polisario and terrorist networks.
Moreover, the head of the Moroccan government, Aziz Akhannouch had condemned “the proven and confirmed links between the separatist militias (Polisario, editor’s note) and the dangerous terrorist networks in the Sahel region”in a speech to the 77th session of the UN General Assembly last September.