ADF STAFF
Algeria and Mali are locked in a diplomatic row. Bamako accuses Algiers of backing Malian separatist groups while Algeria has criticized Mali for failing to uphold a peace agreement with Tuareg rebels.
The feud boiled over recently when Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf opposed Mali’s plans to reclassify certain northern separatist groups as terrorist organizations. Attaf also criticized Mali’s heavy-handed counterterrorism efforts as ineffective.
“A military solution is impossible in the Sahel and Sahara, particularly in Mali, as it has been attempted three times in the past and failed,” Attaf said in a December statement.
Algeria has advocated for Malian opposition movements that had signed the Algiers Accords peace agreement in 2015. The deal was intended to give northern groups more say in Mali’s government after the 2012 Tuareg rebellion. Mali ended the deal in January 2024.
Bamako perceived Attaf’s comments as an intrusion into its internal affairs. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded in early January with a statement saying that its strategic choices against armed terrorist groups are under its exclusive jurisdiction.
“In this respect, Mali neither asks for nor receives lessons from Algeria, which in the recent past has conducted its fight against terrorism in full sovereignty,” the Malian statement said.
The statement also alleged that Algerian authorities’ have “undisguised sympathy for terrorist groups” operating in Mali and the Sahel region.
“The Ministry therefore calls on Algeria to redirect its energies towards resolving its own internal crises and contradictions, including the Kabylie issue, and to stop using Mali as a lever for its international positioning,” the Malian statement said.
The Kabylie are an ethnic group in the mountainous regions of northern Algeria. The Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK) seeks autonomy and independence from Algeria’s Kabylie region, and Algerian authorities have labeled MAK as a terrorist organization.
Longtime MAK President Ferhat Mehenni in January urged Amar Benjamaa, Algeria’s United Nations ambassador, to initiate a discussion in the U.N. Security Council about his people’s right to self-determination. Mehenni accused the Algerian government of violently suppressing Kabylie independence aspirations since June 2021.
“Over 13,000 activists have been arrested, subjected to torture, and in some cases, sexual violence during interrogations,” Mehenni wrote, alleging that 38 Kabylie are on death row for crimes they did not commit.
The Algeria-Mali relationship has been deteriorating since December 2023, when both countries recalled their ambassadors.
“Algeria fears that these escalating tensions could lead to a successful Tuareg separatist movement, which would inspire marginalized ethnic groups across Algeria, Niger and Libya to pursue autonomy,” analyst Assala Khettache wrote for the Royal United Services Institute. “A Tuareg breakaway in Mali could potentially destabilize an already fragile Sahel region, with Algeria’s southern borders especially vulnerable.”
In mid-January, a Spanish man in southern Algeria was kidnapped and held several days until being freed by the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a coalition of separatist groups in Mali’s predominantly Tuareg north.
The FLA said Gilbert Navarro was abducted by a “transnational mafia” without naming the group. He was in good health when he was released to Algerian authorities.
The FLA said in a report by The New Arab, that Navarro and his kidnappers were located near Tinzawaten, which straddles the Algerian border.
Tinzawaten was the site of a fierce three-day in July 2024 during which 47 Malian Soldiers and 84 Russian mercenaries were killed by fighters with the al-Qaida-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin terror group and a newly formed Tuareg rebel group. It was Russia’s biggest loss since it deployed to Mali in 2021 and FAMa’s worst defeat since hostilities resumed in 2023.
Mali’s military junta has repeatedly pledged to restore security to the country after using the terror threat as justification for coups in 2020 and 2021. Instead, the violence has gotten worse. Its forces have suffered military losses, and the government kicked U.N. and French peacekeepers out of the country.
After the U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), left in December 2023, terror attacks surged. From then until November 2024, attacks by extremist groups more than doubled, according to the Global Conflict Tracker.
The post Mali, Algeria in Diplomatic Row Over Counterterrorism Measures first appeared on Africa Defense Forum.
The post Mali, Algeria in Diplomatic Row Over Counterterrorism Measures appeared first on Africa Defense Forum.
