Bouteflika Presides a Security Meeting on the Region's Situation

President of the Republic, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, met on Sunday, with one of the Senior State Officials in a small ministerial council, which dealt with the security situation in the region, amid great concern among the political authorities, and the state of alert among the various military and security forces, in the wake of the two foiled terrorist attempts terrorist in the Algerian south, in less than one week.

It seems that the security situation in the region and the southern border noticed developments, and is haunting the power and decision makers as to make the President Bouteflika held two security meeting in less than one month, parallel with extensive visits of the Deputy Defence Minister, Army Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Gaid Saleh , who worried about the situation of the region, and admitted, in his last visit, the difficulty of the security situation, and the danger that is posed by this situation to the security and stability of the country. 

This diagnosis, which came in the wake of the terrorist attack, and the discovery of weapons’ caches in Oued Souf (southern Algeria), including the US “Stinger” missiles, which source sparked controversy among observers of the security affairs, because the ​​arms were smuggled from Libya, which was not attracted to American arms.

Friday’s operation, which noticed the seizure of heavy weapons, was followed by foiling a terrorist attempt to blow up oil facilities between Meniaa and In Salah (southern Algeria), which confirms the serious threat to the region and its rising due to the new intentions of “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” to target oil installations in the south of Algeria. 

This threat remained, since a period, the key concern of officials in Algeria, parallel with the security enhancements and deploying armed forces in a state of alert in three military regions. 

In contrast, the neighbouring countries are noticing an unprecedented security deterioration, whether in Tunisia, which noticed the attempt of “ISIS” to invade one of its provinces, or Libya which is submerged in war and chaos that made it difficult for them to form a unity government to establish a political solution, and opened the appetite of other forces for military intervention in the region.