Algeria steps up border controls

27/08/2008

The Algerian government adopted a new law to step up border surveillance and improve communications between the customs authority and the gendarmerie.

By Achira Mammeri for Magharebia in Algiers – 27/08/08

[Achira Mammeri] The Algerian government plans to establish 85 new border posts to fight smuggling, which helps finance terrorism.

In a bid to close the net on terrorist networks, Algeria adopted a new law on August 3rd which authorizes the creation of 85 new border surveillance posts. The new security positions will be jointly run by the customs authority and the gendarmerie in effort to facilitate information sharing between the two agencies and co-ordinate their efforts to tackle smuggling, which many say helps fund terrorism.

Finance Minister Mohamed Abdou Bouderbala stated in an interview with El Djeich magazine that "[i]n view of the country's large area, the length of its borders and the type of smuggling going on in the south in particular, the national gendarmerie needs to be capable of launching ground-level operations which will enable it to help prevent smuggling."

Customs service inspector-general M. A. Mahrache, told Le Quotidien d’Oran on Sunday (August 24th) that the government plans to purchase a number of helicopters to "cover vast stretches of desert which ordinary mobile units cannot cover."

Ain Sefra, Tindouf, Biskra, Tamanrasset, Djanet, Timimoun Bechar and Tlemcen are all hotspots for smugglers trading in arms, fuel, livestock and drugs.

Incidents of smuggling are discovered almost daily on Algeria's eastern, western and southern borders and many more are believed to occur without the authorities' detection.

On August 19th, Algerian authorities recovered 324 litres of fuel abandoned by smugglers on the eastern border near Ain Zerga and El Metidja in Tebessa wilaya. Two days earlier, on the southern border, border guards in Borj-Badji Mokhtar caught two smugglers driving a car filled with 2,600 packs of cigarettes, 430 rolls of electric wiring and 600 bottles of lubricant bound for Debdeb in Illizi commune.

On August 23rd, police on the south-western border near Bechar opened fire at three smugglers taking 38 dromedaries to Morocco after they failed to heed orders to stop. Two of the smugglers sustained minor injuries and one was arrested. The same day, border guards near Tlemcen recovered 2,820 litres of fuel abandoned by smugglers at the border.

"It's very dangerous when you remember that there is a link between smuggling and terrorist groups," journalist and security expert Abderahim Saber told Magharebia.

"Drug money funds terrorism," Abdelmale Sayeh, director of the National Office for the Fight against Drugs and Drug Addiction, has told the press, based on statements made by terrorists.

Saber cited the case of the GSPC's former leader in the Sahara, Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

The terrorist "began to specialise in the smuggling trade after his isolation from the GSPC," Saber said.

"Algeria’s southern borders are a stronghold of the cigarette mafia, arms traffickers and armed groups. Four-wheel drive vehicles, cigarettes, marijuana and even weapons bring in millions if not billions for these groups every year," Saber added, saying the southern region also receives assistance from Tuaregs.