Algeria further escalates Morocco tensions with new accusations

RABAT--Political analysts in Rabat rejected Algerian accusations that Moroccan armed forces mounted a raid that that killed three Algerian nationals on the border with Mauritania as “fake news” aimed at further escalating tensions between the two neighbouring countries.

“Three Algerians were assassinated … in a barbaric strike on their trucks”, Algeria’s presidency said Wednesday, in a statement quoted by the APS state news agency.

It reported the truck drivers had been travelling between the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott northeast to the Algerian city of Ouargla.

Algeria was threatening in its tone. It said, “this cowardly assassination with a sophisticated weapon” would “not go unpunished.”

Morocco has not officially commented on the accusations, but an informed source in Rabat told international media, Wednesday, that the kingdom “has never targeted and will never target Algerian citizens, regardless of the circumstances and the provocations.”

“If Algeria wants war, Morocco doesn’t,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

Morocco will not be drawn into a cycle of violence that will destabilise the region,” he said, condemning “wanton accusations” against the kingdom.

“If Algeria wants to drag the region into war through provocations and threats, Morocco will not be drawn into it,” he added.

The Algerian version of events was seriously punctured by Mauritania’s rejection of the claim that Algerian trucks were attacked in northern Mauritania.

The Mauritanian National Army issued a statement in which it emphasised that no attack took place “inside its national  territory” and warned against “suspicious news sources.”

Maghreb experts see Algeria as being engaged in an escalatory spiral with no clear end in sight except creating a bellicose atmosphere within Algeria, which is good for domestic consumption.

During the last few months Algiers has taken successive measures against Morocco, that have drawn no reprisals from Rabat. Without any evidence of its claims, Algiers accused Rabat, on August 18, of complicity in deadly forest fires. Six days later, it severed diplomatic relations with Morocco because of Rabat’s “hostile actions”. Then, in September, Algeria shut its airspace to Moroccan planes. And last week, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ordered gas exports using the pipeline through Morocco to Spain to be halted.

Experts say Algeria resents some of its most recent diplomatic setbacks, especially in the UN,  over the Western Sahara issue, as well as its fraying regional posture.

The experts say Algeria was also disappointed by the Biden administration’s decision not to disavow former President Trump’s decision of last summer, to recognise Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

Algiers seems to have opted for escalation ahead of the next visit to the region by Staffan de Mistura, the new personal envoy to the Western Sahara of the United Nations secretary-general. It has also rejected a UN proposal for  a return to roundtable talks. Such talks were last held in 2019 with the participation of top officials from Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario.

Analysts in Rabat wonder about the next steps that Algeria could take to further ratchet up tensions between the two countries to the point of giving the impression of an impending war.

Canada-based Moroccan international affairs expert Hichem Motaded told The Arab Weekly that “the repeated accusations levelled by the Algerian regime against Morocco are part of a well-premeditated provocations to posture as a victim before regional and international public opinion”.

Motaded took the view that Algeria “wants to involve Mauritania in promoting its war vision” and push Tunisia away from its currently neutral position in the conflict.