Algeria Conducts Live-Fire Military Exercise Near Moroccan Border

"Major General Saïd Chengriha, interim Chief of Staff of the ANP, supervised, at the level of the training field belonging to the southern operational sector of Tindouf, the execution of a tactical exercise with live ammunition, called ’Fidelity to the Oath’, which is part of the evaluation of the second stage of the combat preparation program for the year 2019-2020," reports APS. During this military exercise, there were missile launches from combat helicopters and trucks equipped with Katyusha rocket launchers, it is specified.

The choice of the location for this "tactical exercise with live ammunition" seems, it appears, to be problematic. Especially since relations between the two countries have been icy for years for political reasons. Although neighbors, Algeria and Morocco do not maintain good relations. This has been the case since the 1990s. Recently, there was even a diplomatic rift between the two neighbors.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had, on Monday, May 4, called on the United Nations Security Council to meet as soon as possible and adopt a resolution solemnly calling for an immediate cessation of all hostilities around the world, particularly in Libya, without omitting the occupied territories in Palestine and Western Sahara.

Rabat’s response did not wait. "This country, instead of using its resources to improve the precarious situation of its population in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, diverts them to fuel regional destabilization," declared the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccans Residing Abroad, Nasser Bourita, without citing Algeria.