Article
Dalia Ghanem
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"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center"
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"collections": [
"Civil-Military Relations in Arab States"
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"primaryCenter": "Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center",
"programAffiliation": "MEP",
"programs": [
"Middle East"
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"regions": [
"Maghreb",
"North Africa",
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"topics": [
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Source: Getty
Are Bouteflika’s Shake-Ups a Sign of Shifting Civil-Military Ties in Algeria?
Algeria’s president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has been dismissing high-profile security officials at an unprecedented rate without any public explanation from Bouteflika or his inner circle.
By Dalia Ghanem
Published on Nov 15, 2018
Source: World Politics Review
Since last June, Algeria’s 81-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has been dismissing high-profile security officials at an unprecedented rate. A who’s-who of top brass from the police, the gendarmerie and most importantly the army, which has long been the backbone of the Algerian regime, have all been replaced—and all without any public explanation from Bouteflika or his inner circle.
The shake-ups, which seemed to have concluded in late September, ousted around a dozen senior generals and regional army commanders, including the director of defense personnel, the chief of the army’s powerful Central Security Directorate, the commander of the ground forces and the head of the air force. Five of those generals were then jailed in October, apparently on charges of corruption and other wrongdoing. Last week, Bouteflika reportedly released the five generals, according to Reuters.
The full article originally appeared in World Politics Review.
About the Author
Dalia Ghanem
Former Senior Resident Scholar, Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center
Dalia Ghanem was a senior resident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, where her research focuses on Algeria’s political, economic, social, and security developments. Her research also examines political violence, radicalization, civil-military relationships, transborder dynamics, and gender.
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Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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