Algeria sends troops to Niger. Historic shift in stance towards the Emirates

For the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a contingent of Algerian troops is to be deployed abroad – to Niger, to be precise. On Sunday, the upper house of the Algerian Parliament, meeting in an emergency session behind closed doors, voted unanimously to authorise a historic shift in the North African country’s foreign policy. The details of the mission are unknown, but its main aim is to help Niger’s military junta maintain security along the border, which stretches for almost a thousand kilometres between the two countries.

Algiers had already intervened in August by sending military aircraft to Niamey in the wake of the failed coup d’état, which was on the verge of causing further destabilisation in the Sahel. It has now decided to move on to the next stage. Following the vote in the lower house of Parliament – which is due to confirm Sunday’s result – part of the Algerian military contingent is expected to be stationed at Base 101 in Niamey, where Russian mercenaries from the Africa Corps and around 300 Italian soldiers involved in training the Nigerien Armed Forces are also present. According to press reports, another part of the contingent is expected to occupy the military post at Madama, an outpost in the north-east of the country, where French troops from Operation Barkhane were once stationed; the operation was dismantled following the 2023 coup. The decision to take control of this strategic area is no coincidence, as from there it is possible to monitor all manner of trafficking passing through one of the region’s most porous sectors, not far from the Salvador Pass, a mountain pass in the heart of the Sahara Desert, wedged between Niger, Algeria and Libya. Trafficking in this area involves everything, particularly drugs, weapons and migrants. It is Tuareg territory, and they manage this trafficking alongside allies of Jnim – the acronym used to identify al-Qaeda in the region.

The Trans-Saharan gas pipeline is due to pass through this region; it will link Nigeria with Algeria via Niger, and will subsequently supply Europe as well. A large part of the investment is being funded by the Algerian company Sonatrach. In 2022, the company also signed a crude oil production-sharing agreement with Niger’s Ministry of Petroleum for the Kafra region, where two exploration wells contain reserves of 168 million barrels and 100 million barrels respectively.

Faced with substantial economic interests, Algeria feels it is surrounded by a highly influential rival: the United Arab Emirates. According to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, what worries Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is that the Gulf state will expand its sphere of influence even further in the Sahel and North Africa. For this reason, last month the two countries recalled their respective ambassadors, severing diplomatic relations. For Abu Dhabi, the Sahel is a valuable resource because it is rich in gold, and for this reason it has for years been offering military aid to coup-installed regimes in exchange for mining concessions. The Emirates have also invested in the Atlantic Pipeline, a project due to become fully operational in 2031 which competes with the Algerian one, as it will transport gas from Nigeria to Morocco via an underwater pipeline running along the West African coast.

Algiers’ interventionism also brings Libya into the picture, because Saddam Haftar, the leader of Benghazi, is one of the United Arab Emirates’ vassals. Tebboune has held a particular dislike for the Libyan general ever since, in August 2024, Saddam’s forces attempted to seize control of Ghadames, on the border between Libya and Algeria. According to many analysts, the deployment of Algerian troops to Niger will also have an impact on any plan for the unification of eastern and western Libya sponsored by the Americans and Turks: as long as Algiers remains on the offensive against Haftar, it will be difficult to envisage a future for the Libyan general as president in Tripoli.