France’s announcement of its intention to end Operation Barkhane to fight militants in the Sahel region, especially in Mali, launched a strategic debate about the possibility of Algeria, the second military power in Africa, to play a greater role.

Indeed, Algeria intends to play a more active role in the region, but can it reach the point of deploying forces outside its borders, as the constitution currently allows?

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Friday that France will start closing its bases in northern Mali before the end of the year, while Paris does not hide its desire for greater involvement of Algeria in the Sahel region.

A French military source said that Paris “must discuss the future of our movements in northern Mali with the United Nations mission in Mali and with the Algerians, who are directly concerned as a neighboring country.”

France is preparing to reduce the number of Barkhane forces in the Sahel region, the largest military operation outside the country, from 5,100 men today to between 2,500 and three thousand.

Since 2012, Mali has plunged into a security crisis that has resulted in thousands of casualties, including civilians, soldiers, and elements of separatist rebel movements and armed groups that have taken advantage of the difficult climate and terrain of the region, especially in the north near the 1,400 km border with Algeria.

In 2013, France, the former colonial power in Mali, intervened militarily to fight the militants, and as part of Operation Barkhane, it deployed about 5,100 soldiers in the Sahel, fifty of whom were killed in various operations.

The United Nations also sent a peacekeeping mission (MINUSMA) that includes 18,300 people, including 13,200 military personnel.

The director of the National Institute for Comprehensive Strategic Studies in Algeria, affiliated with the Presidency of the Republic, Abdelaziz Mujahid, said that France’s decision to withdraw came because it “has become unable to manage the situation in Mali.”

In a statement to Agence France-Presse, this retired major general attributed the reason for “France’s failure” to the fact that it “still carries the ideas of the old colonial state (…) in addition to the fact that local regimes have lost their popularity.”

“The Algerian solution”

However, the country remains the target of attacks by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, inter-communal violence, and various smuggling operations. And expanded the scope of violence to affect neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune asserts that the solution in Mali “will only be Algerian.”

Since it prefers diplomacy and political dialogue, Algeria actively participated in the peace agreement signed by the Bamako government with the independents in 2015, and is leading the follow-up committee for its implementation.

The return of Ramadan Lamamra, a veteran politician in multilateral diplomacy and deeply involved in Africa, to the foreign ministry indicates Algeria’s desire to regain control after its absence in recent years in the region.

The Algerian constitution has allowed the Algerian army to intervene outside the borders since the constitutional amendment on the first of November.

President Tebboune said in an interview with the weekly newspaper Le Point that “the Algerian constitution now permits this kind of interference, but the solution does not lie in that.” “To solve the problem in northern Mali, the state must be redeployed there. Through the Algiers Accords, we are here to help Bamako.”

“Of particular importance”

Political analyst Mabrouk Kahi, a professor of political science at the University of Ouargla in southern Algeria, believes that a military intervention in Mali is “unlikely” because “the Algerian state is very cautious in adopting its positions, let alone sending military forces outside the borders.”

He added that “the activity of the Algerian diplomacy until this moment is frozen,” explaining that “the Algerian diplomacy placed its full confidence in the former regime, the regime of Bah N’Dao, who visited Algeria and was received by President Tebboune and gave him promises of assistance. But the latest coup mixed things up.”

Within nine months, Colonel Asimi Guetta led two coups against President-elect Ibrahim Abubakar Keita, in August 2020 and then last May, against transitional President Bah Ndao.

Algeria has significant influence in northern Mali.

“Although the security role of the Algerians is not very visible, they are definitely aware of everything that is happening in northern Mali for their own security,” said Reda Yammouri, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Klingendal).

“Whether on the intelligence level or in terms of secret meetings, they have networks to get a good idea of ​​what is happening in northern Mali,” he added.

In fact, Algeria cannot abandon Mali by virtue of the neighborhood and the historical and even family relations between the peoples of the two countries in southern Algeria and northern Mali.

There are familial or ethnic relations between the population groups in northern Mali and southern Algeria.

The Algerians have economic and commercial weight in the region. In Timbuktu, Gao or Kidal, the markets depend on Algerian imports – soft drinks, rice, dates and more.

Yamouri said, “Any change in Algeria’s role depends on the development of the situation in Mali and the extent of its impact on it. But it appears that this is not the case. They want to maintain this status quo.”

Former Malian Foreign Minister Tibele Dami said, “Algeria responded to us whenever we resorted to it, and this has been since the outbreak of the rebellions.”

Just as Mali has a special importance for Algeria’s security, as it is its “strategic depth,” as Algerian officials say, “Mali is of strategic importance to France,” as it “mediates all the Francophone countries” in West Africa, according to Kahi.

He added that for this reason, cooperation between the two countries “is necessary and imperative in the areas of dialogue, development and combating terrorism in the Sahel.”

(AFP)