Algeria: the arrest of former police chief Farid Bencheik, a new episode of the regime’s systemic instability

On January 3, Farid Bencheikh was suddenly removed from the post of director general of Algeria’s national security, which he had held since March 2021. Officially, these are glaring security lapses that have been recorded at a continuous pace at the country’s main airports (Algiers, Oran and Constantine), from where the hags boarded with confusing ease towards Europe in the baggage compartment and landing gear of the Air Algérie plane, which will be behind its well yes.

In reality, after being summarily dismissed and replaced as head of the Algerian DGSN, Farid Bencheikh was placed under house arrest, his passport was confiscated and he was banned from leaving the national territory (ISTN). At the same time, his top associates in the DGSN were arrested and subjected to rigorous interrogations by the people of a sinister war criminal from the dark decade: Abdelkader Haddad, known as Nacer El Djinn, who is currently the head of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), in absentia, due to illness, General Djamel Kehal Madjdoub. These interrogations revealed that Farid Bencheikh accused a network of commissars, policemen and other agents, including a journalist named Noureddine Kettal, a former parliamentary candidate under the colors of the Islamist movement Abdelkader Bengrina, of spying on generals, especially those at the head of various intelligence services, as well as their outer branches.

Certain episodes, which took place in 2023, have already set the tone for Farid Bencheikh’s maneuvers against the Algerian intelligence services, for which he is credited with the ambition to weaken them in order to bring them under his control. It mainly refers to the affair of the discovery, in May 2023, of the wiretapping of several generals, including the Chief of General Staff Saïd Chengriha, by Mobilis, the public mobile operator in Algeria, on the orders of the Algerian presidency. It also refers to the attack, a few weeks later in Paris, of Saïd Bensedira, YouTuber, agent and designated spokesman for Khaled Nezzar’s family, based in London, whose mobile phone was stolen by Farid Bencheik’s men.

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The latter eventually sent a report to Abdelmadjid Tebboune, where he gave him concrete evidence that Generals Djebbar M’Henna and Saïd Chengriha, directly or through their sons Mouloud and Chafik, based in Paris, were plotting against the President and his Mouradio men.

The arrest of Farid Bencheik is therefore nothing more than a new episode of the clan struggle that has highlighted the chaotic life of the Algerian political-military system since the dark decade of the 90s of the last century and its 250,000 deaths and disappearances. This clan struggle is still in full swing, as evidenced by the hundreds of high-ranking civilian and military officials currently in prison, not to mention those who were killed there under torture.

Thus, during the last fourteen years, three heads of the DGSN have suffered from these struggles within the Algerian regime. We remember that on February 25, 2010, the director general of national security and army colonel Ali Tounsi, a member of General Toufik’s clan, was killed in his office by Chouaïb Oultache, another army colonel, head of the air police wing. This was actually manipulated by two members of the presidential clan, namely Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni (at that time the minister of the interior) and Saïd Bouteflika (a strong man of Mouradija during his brother’s presidency), who gave him the belief that Ali Tounsi was going to jail him after the discovery of a large of the corruption affair in which the aforementioned Oultache was captured. In reality, Bouteflika’s presidential clan wanted to regain the post of director of the DGSN in order to install a man who was not from Toufik’s DRS, especially since Ali Tounsi was declared to have resigned in July 2009 on a presidential decree to which he refused to comply, claiming that is “Mujahideen and former ONA fighters never resign“.

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The killing of Tounsi finally allowed the Bouteflika clan to achieve its goals, installing Abdelghani Hamel as the new head of the DGSN, who remained in charge of the police for eight years, before being sacked on June 26, 2018. in the scandal of the so-called Kamel El Bouchi affair, which refers to 701 kilograms of cocaine seized in the port of Oran, less than a month earlier (29/05/2018). He was immediately jailed by former Chief of General Staff Ahmed Gaïd Salah, along with several other generals, including Lahbib Centouf, Chief of the 1st Military District, Saïd Bey, Chief of the 2nd Military District, Abderrazak Cherif, Chief of the 4th Military District, and Nouba Menad, Chief of the Gendarmerie. not to mention another thirty or so lower-ranking officers. In this unprecedented purge within the Algerian army, only General Ahcène Tafer (Mujahideen), the then head of the army, was spared from prison and retired, before being replaced by a certain… Saïd Chengriha, rescued from prison on the main warrant of police officer Guermit Bounouira , Gaïd Salah’s private secretary, is now imprisoned and disabled after suffering torture.

In 2020, Major General Mohamed Mediène, known as Toufik, released from prison after the death of Gaïd Salah, will also lead a ruthless purge taking revenge on the latter generals, and especially on the former director of the DGSN, Abdelghani Hamel, whose prison sentence he doubled (with 8 for 16 years) because he actively participated, with General Athmane Tartag, known as Bachir, and Said Bouteflika, all three of whom are still in prison, in breaking up the DRS and imprisoning Generals Hassan and Djebbar M’Henna, among others, or the defection of many of its main leaders, including General Khaled Nezzar and Nacer El Djin, who was appointed head of internal intelligence.

The purge launched by the Toufik clan, just four months after Gaïd Salah’s suspicious death, will see senior military officials jailed, including many heads of various intelligence services. Thus, in addition to the continuation of the imprisonment of Bachir Tartag, the former coordinator of intelligence services, Bouazza Wassini (former DGSI), Mohamed Bouzit better known as Youssef (DDSE), Sid Ali Ould Zmirli (DDSE) will follow… and recently Abdelghani Rachdi (DGSI and DDSE), accused that he is an agent of the United Arab Emirates, where he was a military attaché for many years. To these intelligence chiefs we must add General Abdelhamid Ghrissa, former Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense.

Read also: Algeria: Tebboune admits a clan war at the top of the state

These endless purges and endless revenges show that there is no state in Algeria, but gangs waging a merciless war to serve personal interests.

Now it remains to be seen why the Algerian president, who is also the supreme commander of the armed forces and the minister of defense, did not dare to sanction these generals who plotted against the presidential institution, as Farid Bencheikh proved to him.

It must be said that Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was parachuted into the presidency by the army, needs the protection and support of General Said Chengriha, because he is convinced that if he leaves Mouradia next September, Generals Djebbar M’ Henna, Nacer El Djinn and other unscrupulous henchmen of the general Toufika will send him to prison, along with his two sons.

For his part, the Chief of General Staff of the Algerian army needs a weak president like Tebboune, because as long as the latter is president, Chengriha is guaranteed to remain at the head of the army, thus avoiding being on the sidelines, which is synonymous with possible reckoning with other generals. .