Algeria Seals Land Borders with Morocco

Not content with its decision to close its land borders with Morocco since 1994, Algeria has just announced it deployed a barbed wire wall of nearly 6,000 km along its borders, equipped with surveillance cameras and tens of control towers.

Moroccan Al Massae daily, which reported the news Thursday, commented that Algeria has sealed its borders with Morocco, a few years after the Kingdom installed a sophisticated security device along its eastern border.

According to the newspaper, citing Algerian sources, the barbed wire wall runs over some 6,000 km, and is strewn with hundreds of control towers equipped with new generation radars operating around the clock. In parallel, joint patrols, formed of army brigades, border guards and the Gendarmerie, were deployed along the wall, “to avoid any surprises”, the Algerian sources were quoted by the daily as saying.

However, the daily notes, Moroccan-Algerian borders do not exceed 1,600 km in length and have already been strewn with several trenches and control towers equipped with infrared cameras.

This time, Algerians are using mobile radars and air devices, including drones. Officially, they claim they want to secure the borders to “fight different forms of trans-border crimes”, the daily added.

According to the Algerian sources quoted by the daily, this package of security measures does not concern borders with Morocco only, but also borders with other neighboring countries.

Besides Morocco, Algeria has borders with Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Tunisia. Some of these borders are actually closed for political reasons, others are quasi-closed on security grounds.

The daily recalled that Morocco installed, a few years ago, a 3-meter high fence, equipped with electronic sensors, to foil any intrusion attempt by members of extremist groups inside the Moroccan territory.