Washington DC- As Morocco scores new diplomatic victories in its campaign for a worldwide recognition of its sovereignty over the Western Sahara, a weary Algerian government espouses fake news and fabricated stories as a counter strategy.
Algerian military intelligence’s aggressive and sprawling online disinformation campaign against Morocco could culminate in a regional military confrontation in North Africa.
In fact, Algerian official press mutation from propaganda to downright lies is pushing the two nations to the brink of a war. The ruling military junta has now realized that its disinformation campaign against Morocco is losing influence in Africa and the Americas.
So, instead of relying on paid journalists and private television channels, it has begun to manufacture lies about the military and political situation in the Western Sahara through its official agencies, including the Algeria Press Service (APS) and national television and radio (ENTV).
Algeria’s long standing strategy of countering and hindering Morocco’s economic and diplomatic efforts on the world stage by creating a political and military stalemate between Morocco and the Polisario Militia, an Algerian baked Saharan secessionist armed group, is fast crumbling under the watch of an absent Algerian President and a disoriented Algerian diplomacy.
As more nations, including the United States, have embraced Morocco’s Local Autonomy Plan as the only viable solution to the long simmering Western Sahara conflict, Algeria’s rage and mania have grown to a point where Algerian government officials and institutions have begun to invent stories and manufacture fictional events to justify their failures.
More recently, Algeria’s official disinformation machine, funded and directed by an assortment of Algerian intelligence agencies, went into override when Moroccan forces chased pro-Algeria militants from the Guerguarat crossing post on the Moroccan-Mauritanian borders last November and expanded Morocco’s control over more territories closer the Algerian borders.
While there is no independent evidence of any current direct military confrontations between the Polisario militia and Moroccan forces, the Algerian official and pro- government press continues to spread disinformation, fake news and lies regarding the level of fighting in the Western Sahara and the “high number of human losses” among Moroccan forces. These inflammatory false stories create hatred and resentment on the Moroccan side.
If some of the fake news stories have been broadcasted on non-credible news media funded by Algerian Generals, several of the dubious and comical stories about the death of dozens of Moroccan soldiers and the considerable damage inflicted by the Polisario on the Royal forces are produced and reported by the ASP and ENTV.
Ironically, Algerian observers have compared some of their country’s “private” television channels such as Echourouk, Annahar and Al-Bilad along with the official ASP and ENTV to North Korea national television for their ridiculous and obvious lies and critical gaps in the accuracy of reporting.
In fact, the ENTV has directed, constructed and propagated several fake news footage and “exclusive documentaries” about military scrimmages in the Western Sahara. Several independent Algerian and Moroccan journalists have documented how the ENTV manufactured footage of fake combat, military casualties and civilian fatalities to expose to the world Morocco’s “setbacks”.
This escalation in the media warfare between the two neighbors has reached a dangerous level never seen since the beginning of the Algerian-Moroccan hostilities over the Western Sahara in 1975. As Algeria’s diplomatic failures mounted with more African, South American, Arab countries and the United States opening consulates in the Sahara, the intensity of lies and deception moved into a perilous height.
Furthermore, Algerian intelligence failure to “predict” Morocco’s reaction to the movement of Polisario elements into the Guerguerat area and the U.S. recognition of Western Sahara as Morocco’s have pushed the Algerian Armed forces to adopt an unusually aggressive tone demonstrated by their recent mass scale militate maneuvers on the borders with the Kingdom.
Sadly, the Algerian military propaganda and schemes are turning Morocco from an adversary to an enemy in the eyes of the Algerian people. The level of heated exchanges between Moroccans and Algerians on social media has reached a new level of animosity never seen before. This uptake in hostilities is pushing both nations toward uncharted territories.
In the absence of a tangible Algerian foreign policy platform, the ruling Military junta will likely continue to exercise its tradition of misleading its domestic audience, the international community and Sahrawis about the extent of the Polisario failures and the decline in international support for its standings in the region. Algiers permanent information warfare failed to discredit Moroccan positions; instead, it exposed the ineptness of Algeria’s diplomatic and media apparatuses.
