The Moroccan newspaper Assahifa’s article attempting to portray Algeria as a source of instability in the Sahel is less a security analysis than a political propaganda exercise. Under the pretext of commenting on the dismantling of an ISIS-linked cell in Morocco, the article constructs a carefully crafted narrative: terrorism in the Sahel is allegedly fueled by separatism, separatism is allegedly sustained by Algeria, and Europe should therefore regard Rabat as its primary security bulwark. This narrative may serve a state communication strategy, but it does not withstand scrutiny when confronted with facts, international data, or the recent history of the region.
The first weakness of the article is methodological. It begins with a genuine security event—an anti-terrorist operation conducted in Morocco—and gradually shifts toward a geopolitical indictment of Algeria. Yet no direct operational evidence is provided linking the dismantled cell to Algerian territory, Algerian institutions, or an Algerian strategy. The article moves from information to insinuation, and from insinuation to accusation. This is a classic propaganda technique: exploiting a real threat in order to manufacture a political adversary.
However, when one examines credible international sources, a very different picture emerges. Algeria is regularly described as a major actor in counterterrorism efforts in North Africa. The U.S. Department of State has repeatedly highlighted Algeria’s robust efforts in prevention, arrests, dismantling terrorist cells, destroying weapons caches, and neutralizing armed extremist groups. It has also emphasized that no major offensive terrorist incidents were reported in Algeria in 2023, and that the operational capabilities of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and local ISIS-affiliated branches have become significantly limited.
This reality is fundamental. Algeria is not a country that discovered terrorism through press releases or communication campaigns. It paid an enormous human price during the 1990s. It confronted a wave of extreme terrorist violence largely on its own and in the face of considerable international misunderstanding. From that painful experience emerged a solid security doctrine based on intelligence gathering, border protection, refusal to make concessions to armed groups, controlled deradicalization, and regional cooperation. It is this experience that has made Algeria a recognized reference in counterterrorism rather than a source of insecurity.
Available data confirm this trajectory. The Global Terrorism Index shows a significant long-term decline in the impact of terrorism in Algeria, with the country’s score falling to 1.766 in 2025 compared with much higher levels in the early 2000s. This evolution did not occur by chance. It reflects the effectiveness of a security apparatus that has reduced the operational capacity of terrorist organizations within national territory while maintaining high vigilance against threats emanating from the Sahel, Libya, and border regions.
The second weakness of the Moroccan article lies in its simplistic interpretation of the Sahel crisis. The text attempts to persuade readers that instability in the Sahel is primarily linked to Algeria, the Polisario Front, or separatist movements. Such a reading is overly reductive. The Sahel crisis is first and foremost the product of weakened state authority in several countries, the massive circulation of weapons following the collapse of the Libyan state in 2011, transnational trafficking networks, communal conflicts, poverty, regional marginalization, and the absence of essential public services.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in its report Journey to Extremism in Africa, stresses that violent extremism on the continent cannot be explained solely by ideology or poverty. Rather, it is fueled by a combination of factors: feelings of injustice, lack of opportunities, distrust of institutions, local violence, security-sector abuses, and criminal economies. Reducing this complexity to accusations against Algeria therefore amounts to refusing to address the true roots of the problem.
The article also cites tensions between Mali and Algeria as if statements made by authorities in Bamako constituted evidence. Here again, rigor is required. A political accusation—even when expressed in an international forum—is not judicial proof. Mali is currently experiencing a profound crisis marked by diplomatic isolation, military pressure from armed groups, evolving alliances, tensions with several neighboring countries, and the search for scapegoats. In such a context, blaming Algeria can serve to divert attention from the Malian authorities’ internal challenges.
Algeria’s approach to the Sahel has consistently differed from interventionist models. It rejects destabilizing military interference, supports political dialogue, combats terrorism, promotes border cooperation, and advocates African solutions to African crises. This position may not please every actor, but it cannot reasonably be equated with support for terrorism. Indeed, in 2026 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) organized a regional roundtable in Algiers on cross-border cooperation against terrorism and organized crime in North Africa, bringing together Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, the African Union, AFRIPOL, and Security Council experts. A country genuinely suspected of fostering terrorism would not be placed at the center of such an international coordination mechanism.
Another tactic employed by the article is the use of the Polisario Front as a convenient scarecrow. It lumps together the Tindouf refugee camps, separatism, trafficking, and jihadism within a single accusatory framework. This is a dangerous amalgamation. The fact that certain individuals may have moved, at some point in their personal trajectories, from a political environment into criminal or terrorist networks does not justify criminalizing an entire population, a political cause, or a host state. Effective counterterrorism must target networks, financiers, operational cells, leaders, and logistical routes—not entire communities or political claims.
Yet perhaps the most revealing aspect of the article is not what it says, but what it omits. If it genuinely sought to analyze the links between terrorism, organized crime, and instability in the Sahel, why does it say almost nothing about narcotics trafficking? Why does it avoid discussing the drug routes that cross North Africa and feed the criminal economies of the Sahel? Why does it focus on political accusations against Algeria while carefully sidestepping questions about Morocco’s role as a major source and transit point for cannabis resin?
This question is all the more legitimate given that international reports have long documented the significance of Moroccan cannabis within regional trafficking flows. UNODC reports on drug trafficking in the Sahel have highlighted the importance of criminal economies and their connections with armed and terrorist networks. Available data further indicate that cannabis resin seizures remain heavily concentrated in North Africa, with Morocco playing a notable role in recent seizures.
Consequently, an uncomfortable question arises: if terrorist groups in the Sahel profit from transnational trafficking, and if cannabis resin produced in or transiting through Morocco has for years formed part of these criminal routes, why does the article never examine possible links between Moroccan narcotics trafficking and Sahelian terrorist networks? Why does this connection suddenly become invisible when it could prove embarrassing to Rabat?
The so-called “Sahara Escobar” affair makes this question even more relevant. In June 2026, several former high-ranking Moroccan officials were reportedly convicted in connection with a vast international drug-trafficking network linked to Malian trafficker Ahmed Ben Brahim, nicknamed the “Escobar of the Sahara.” According to reported allegations, the network involved trafficking routes between Morocco, North Africa, and the Sahel. The case was widely described as unprecedented in Morocco because of the alleged involvement of influential political figures in an international narcotics operation.
This is not to claim that the Moroccan state supports terrorism. Such an accusation would require solid, judicially established, and indisputable evidence. But it is entirely legitimate to denounce the double standard. When discussing Algeria, the article relies on insinuations, amalgams, and allegations. Yet when a Moroccan judicial case highlights drug-trafficking networks with regional and Sahelian dimensions, analytical caution suddenly becomes absolute. Why is that same caution never extended to Algeria?
The fight against terrorism cannot be selective. One cannot denounce links between terrorism and organized crime only when doing so supports a communication strategy directed against a neighboring country. If trafficking finances armed groups, then all forms of trafficking must be examined: drugs, weapons, fuel smuggling, irregular migration, ransom operations, and money laundering. Any serious discussion of the Sahel must necessarily address narcotics routes.
Regional security cannot be built on unfounded accusations. It requires consistency, cooperation, and intellectual honesty. Yet the Moroccan article fails on all three fronts. It does not seek to understand the deeper causes of instability in the Sahel. Instead, it seeks to construct a narrative in which Morocco is the protector and Algeria the problem. Such a narrative may be politically useful for Rabat, but it is analytically flawed.
In reality, Algeria remains one of the few countries in the region that has confronted, contained, and significantly reduced a major terrorist threat on its own territory. It possesses recognized security expertise, a proven doctrine, active international cooperation, and a deep understanding of Sahelian dynamics. The available facts point to Algeria as a force for stability rather than a source of chaos.
The conclusion is therefore straightforward: the Moroccan article does not provide an objective analysis of terrorism in the Sahel. It presents a political indictment of Algeria under the guise of regional security concerns. Yet propaganda, no matter how sophisticated, remains propaganda. Faced with the seriousness of the terrorist threat, the region does not need hostile narratives. It needs truth, responsibility, and genuine cooperation against all factors of instability—including those that some media outlets prefer to leave unmentioned.
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