How Algeria used the Polisario to destabilize Mali and Sahel

In the late 1970s, Algeria geared the Polisario towards separatism as it was orchestrating a far more complex and calculated strategy that extended well beyond the borders of the Sahara territory.

Through its support for the Polisario militias, Algeria not only advanced its position in the Sahara dispute but also laid the groundwork for a broader campaign of influence and destabilization across the Sahel, with Mali as a key target, wrote Jilali Adnani in an op-ed on Le360.

Revisiting archives, Adnani recalls when Mali’s President Moussa Traoré and Nigeria’s General Olusegun Obasanjo visited Algiers in late 1970s. The meetings were presented as a neutral effort to prepare an African summit on the Sahara.

Yet, French diplomatic archives reveal a different reality: Algeria was using the Polisario as a lever to pressure Mali into alignment. Training camps in Koulikoro, Mali- run with East German support- hosted fighters from Algeria, Mali, and Niger, signaling a coordinated effort to militarize the region under the guise of solidarity with the Polisario.

Back then, Mali’s shift toward supporting the Polisario was not driven by ideology but by survival. Facing threats of separatist movements in its northern regions- movements allegedly structured in Tripoli with Libyan and Algerian backing- Mali sought to appease its powerful neighbors. The logic was clear: support the Polisario to avoid internal rebellion. Algeria’s promise to “restrain” destabilizing forces became a political currency that Mali could not afford to ignore.

This alignment had tangible consequences. Mali’s voice was instrumental in the membership of the self-declared SADR entity in the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1982. But this was not a triumph of pan-African diplomacy, it was a calculated trade-off. Mali’s endorsement of the Polisario was the price of temporary peace at home.

The strategy didn’t end there. Figures like Mahmoud Hamrany, a former Malian ambassador, emerged as intermediaries between Tripoli and the Polisario, helping to structure a separatist movement in northern Mali. The model was clear: replicate the Polisario’s framework to fragment Mali from within. Algeria’s support for these movements was not incidental, it was instrumental.

Fast forward to today, and the echoes of this strategy are unmistakable. In 2024 and 2025, Mali has accused Algeria of complicity with armed groups, offering them sanctuary and logistical support. The name Iyad ag Ghali, leader of the jihadist group JNIM and now targeted by the International Criminal Court, surfaces repeatedly in these accusations.

For many in Bamako, Algeria’s “hospitality” has morphed into strategic tolerance, if not outright sponsorship.

But now, Mali’s new military authorities- thanks to an alliance with junta led Niger and Burkina Faso- is taking matters to its hand, ending Algeria’s blackmail of using separatists to unsettle its neighbours. Bamako has outrightly drawn a comparison between separatism in its north and the case of Kabyle independence movement known as Mak.

Algeria’s use of the Polisario was never just about holding Morocco in check and jeopardizing Maghreb unity. It was- and remains- a tool to serve Algeria’s hegemonic ambitions, weaken neighboring states, and assert dominance through managed instability.

Forty-five years later, the stage changed, but the script remains familiar. Algeria’s shadow game continues, and the Polisario remains a pawn in a much larger geopolitical chessboard in which the Sahara is but a cover hiding Algeria’s failed hegemonic schemes.