Presidency of the Republic: “Changes in the “DRS” Intelligence Services have been prepared for 25 years”

The Presidency of the Republic has stated that the recent changes that affected the DRS (Intelligence Services) are part of a scheme that has been prepared for 25 years.

The Presidency explained in a statement issued on Thursday, that these changes and reorganizations at the level of the DRS were within the scope of the “organizational structure that has been worked out for a quarter of a century and aims to strengthen the capacity and efficiency of the Algerian intelligence services in order to make them tally with the current national political transformations.”

The statement added that these changes are in the context of the “wide” security and political reform movement initiated in 2011 to lift the state of emergency and ensure the implementation of several laws with a political dimension, stressing that this endeavour will be crowned soon with the revision of the country’s Constitution.

The statement also indicated that such reforms also affected “whenever necessary” the institutions responsible for the maintaining of security along the lines of the reorganization processes initiated and the changes made at the level of the DRS intelligence services, adding that the latter “have been contributing selflessly to preserve the state for the sake of the country’s supreme interests by mobilizing to this effect highly-skilled human resources “.

The President of the Republic, Abdelaziz Bouteflika,  dismissed on 14 September 2015,  Intelligence services chief Mohamed Mediene also known as “General Toufik”, and replaced him with Major  General Athmane Tertag also known as “General Bashir.”

General Toufik has been at the helm of the DRS intelligence services for a 25 year period as he was appointed to this post way back in 1992.