Tension brews between Algiers and Bamako as President Tebboune receives Malian opposition leader
Mali has summoned Algeria’s ambassador to Bamako in protest over Algerian president Tebboune’s reception of a religious leader backing the Touareg independence rebels.
President Tebboune had offered a reception in his Mouradia palace in Algiers to Mahmoud Dicko, an Imam and an opponent of the ruling men in uniform in Bamako.
The reception was “an unfriendly act” and a “meddling in the domestic affairs of Mali,” the Malian foreign ministry said.
The reception was seen in Bamako as a provocative act that “had nothing to do with the peace process in Mali,” said the ministry in a statement.
Algiers has also multiplied contact with Touareg rebels without prior consultation with Mali whose forces have recently taken the Touareg stronghold of Kidal.
The Malian foreign ministry also urged Algeria to consult with Bamako before engaging in any step with the Touaregs.
In response, Touareg armed groups, brought together under the Strategic Permanent Framework or CSP, responded by blocking all roads linking Algeria to Mali.
The resumption of the Touareg armed struggle for the independence of the northern Mali region of Azawad and the actions of the Russia-backed Malian army meant a de facto collapse of the Algeria-brokered 2015 power sharing agreement.
Few months ago, Niger’s putschists rejected Algeria’s mediation and so did the ECOWAS.
Mali and Niger distrust towards Algeria is but a symptom of Algeria’s lack of credibility in its southern neighborhood whose root causes are to be found in its self-serving strategy.
Algeria’s mediation efforts in the Sahel crises have been “designed to advance its own interests first,” US think tank, the United States Institute of Peace, said in an analysis last month.
Terrorist groups in the Sahel have for long been led by Algerian Jihadists, some of whom are reported to have close links with Algerian intelligence.
Exporting the terrorist threat, containing the Touareg independence quest and mobilizing against Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara territory, are the aims of the Algerian diplomacy that pose limits to Algeria’s ambition to play a key role as a credible mediator in Sahel’s crisis.
