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Join on Telegram Rabat – Has Algeria gone too far in its recent series of incendiary statements and accusations designed to escalate tensions with Morocco?
That’s the question many have been asking in Morocco as news emerged earlier today of the Algerian government appearing to condone unverified reports that the Mauritanian government had already strongly denied.
Yesterday, Mauritania’s military sent out a statement in which it denounced Algerian media’s allegations of Moroccan drone strikes targeting Algerian truckers on Mauritanian soil.
“In order to enlighten public opinion and correct the circulated information, the Directorate of Communication and Public relations commanded the General Staff of the army to deny the occurrence of any tack inside the national territory,” the Mauritanian army said in its statement published.
One would have expected Mauritania’s official denial and strongly-worded denunciation of disinformation to pause the Algerian media and regime in their unrelenting invocation of unproven Moroccan hostility toward Algeria and all things Algerian.
However, merely a day after Mauritania published its statement, a counter-statement from the office of the Algerian Presidency showed Algiers’ determination to stand by its Morocco-bashing disinformation campaign.
Three Algerian nationals “were cowardly murdered by a barbaric bombardment of their trucks” while they were traveling between Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital city, and Noaurgla, a city in southern Algeria, the Algerian presidency claimed.
Naturally, the statement accused Morocco of being behind the alleged attack, claiming that elements of the Moroccan army used “sophisticated weaponry” to hit the Algerian truck drivers.
“The Algerian authorities immediately took the necessary steps to investigate this despicable act in order to determine the circumstances of the case,” the statement said.
APS, Algeria’s state-owned news agency, amplified the government’s talking points in yet another unevidenced allegation against Morocco. The newspaper cited “several factors” as supporting the vague and unevidenced instance of Morocco targeting and destroying Algerian trucks.
Describing the alleged attack as a “terror act,” the Algerian presidency vowed: “This will not go unnoticed without punishment.” APS’ coy report merely cited the presidency’s vows and furor, giving no verifiable details about the attack Morocco is purported to have carried out against Algerian truckers.
This latest cycle of the Algerian media and regime amplifying each other’s vehement denunciations of unproven – and often purposefully fabricated – Moroccan hostility toward Algeria comes amid growing tension between Algiers and Rabat.
But even this growing diplomatic rift in itself is mainly of Algeria’s making; it began with the Algerian regime accusing – again without evidence – Morocco of destabilizing Algeria and subsequently severing diplomatic relations with Rabat in a dramatic announcement.
As things currently stand – Algeria fuming and promising payback for alleged attacks while Morocco’s government shows restraint and asks its eatern neighbor to prove its “fallacious” and “unfounded” accusations – many observers see the latest move from Algeria as an integral part of the Algerian regime’s usual Morocco card.
The idea is that Algiers’ determination to dangerously intensify tensions with Morocco is mainly meant to help an embattled and failing political elite elude popular criticism and scrutiny by rallying the people around foreign enemies seeking to destabilize Algeria and hurting Algerians in the process.
Morocco has to date appeared to be opting for restraint and diplomatic composure despite ceaseless official statements and media reports and columns wildly accusing it of being the main and only origin of almost everything that is not going right in Algeria.
With suggestions that Morocco may run out of patience in the face of an Algerian regime hellbent on dragging it into an open confrontation – via fiery statements and media campaigns or on the ground – many observers fear that this growing rift between the two neighbors could have seriously damaging repercussions.
Over the past few months, Algerian media and government have: published fake videos and content on an “ongoing war” in Western Sahara; accused Morocco of causing the wildfires in the Kabylie region to undermine Algeria’s national unity; lashed out at Rabat for supposedly colluding with Israel to sow instability in Algeria and the MENA at large; severed diplomatic relations with Rabat; closed Algerian airpace to Moroccan planes; terminated the contract of the Europe-Maghreb pipeline and lied about the reason by pointing to Morocco’s “hostile” acts; and instructed Algerian companies to sever all ties with their Moroccan counterparts.
In the midst of it all, Morocco has gone for self-control and even promised to continue to behave in a loyal and neighborly manner to “the brotherly Algerian people” despite divergences with their government.
But is this latest, baseless accusation of Morocco’s senseless killing of Algerian truckers a step too far in Algeria’s long history of Morocco-bashing? Does this allegation warrant a response from Morocco?
As usual, Rabat is yet to respond to what it understandably – and perhaps rightly – interprets as a last-ditch attempt at a dangerous provocation from a government desperately looking for scapegoats. With Algeria tirelessly pushing forth its ad hominem attacks and uncorroborated accusations, however, many fear that the question is no longer whether Morocco will respond. But rather: when and how will Morocco respond?
Francois Tamba Koundouno contributed to this story
