The statement issued by Algeria’s General Directorate of National Security on Sunday, October 11, and immediately carried by every Algerian television channel runs to just a few lines. The 61 Moroccans, “including a former member of the Moroccan military,” allegedly flew to Tunis before entering Algeria “via steep mountain trails and isolated forest paths in the El Kala region,” then travelling on to Oran “to carry out their acts of sabotage.”
A statement that does not stand up to scrutiny
One need only read it to see how flimsy it is. The arrests took place in “early October”: the police cannot even provide a date. The network is described as “highly dangerous,” yet no weapons were seized. The only evidence cited is “Moroccan passports and sums of money in Moroccan dirhams and euros.” The sort of things any Moroccan traveler might have in their pocket.
Then there is the route. Sixty-one people supposedly crossed one of the region’s most heavily monitored borders clandestinely, then travelled nearly a thousand kilometers across Algeria from east to west without attracting attention.
Only to be arrested together in Oran, passports still in their pockets. That is not how a sabotage network operates. It is, however, how a script is written. So what is the Algerian regime preparing? Past episodes offer some clues.
Televised confessions
First, the regime is preparing a spectacle. The script was rehearsed this summer. On July 13, Algeria’s Defense Ministry announced the arrest of six alleged “MAK members,” four of them Moroccan, accused of plotting to disrupt the legislative elections.
A month later, state television broadcast their “confessions.” The same treatment can be expected for the 61 arrested in Oran: blurred faces, rehearsed lines and Morocco cast as the mastermind.
State-sponsored hatred of Moroccans
Next comes the cultivation of hatred. This affair is no isolated incident. It forms part of an anti-Moroccan hostility methodically nurtured by the regime for years. In August 2021, Algeria’s High Security Council accused Morocco of being behind the deadly wildfires in Kabylie before severing diplomatic relations a few days later.
Since then, Moroccans have become the regime’s convenient scapegoats. In military rhetoric, the Moroccan is “the traditional enemy.” In a compliant press that makes such allegations its daily fare, the Moroccan is a spy, a trafficker, an agent of the MAK or Israel.
This propaganda is not directed at some abstract “Makhzen,” as the regime claims. It targets a people. Day after day, it teaches Algerians to distrust their neighbors, their former colleagues, the Moroccan laborer living in their neighborhood. It manufactures an enemy so that it can then point the finger at him.
The hunt for Moroccans
And once an enemy has been identified, the hunt can begin. The first targets are invariably the most vulnerable: Moroccans living in Algeria, often craftsmen or construction workers, sometimes without legal residency, protection or a voice.
The visa requirement imposed on Moroccans in 2024, the four workers presented as MAK operatives in July, and now 61 people arrested in a single sweep: the logic is the same.
Distracting from incompetence
For there must be something else to talk about besides the daily struggles of Algerians. On July 2, barely more than one voter in five turned out for the legislative elections: 20.79% according to official figures, the lowest turnout in the country’s history, with polling stations virtually deserted in Kabylie. Through their silence, Algerians made their feelings about those who govern them clear.
They have good reason. In one of Africa’s richest countries in oil and gas, household food bills are soaring. Between late June and mid-August, the price of a tray of eggs rose by around 65%, while chicken prices climbed by a third in local markets, according to Maghreb Émergent. Meat, fruit and vegetables are becoming luxuries for many families.
This summer, dozens of municipalities in the capital endured repeated water cuts while a desalination plant broke down. And the most damning figure comes not from Algiers, but from Brussels.
Read also : Algeria: Humiliated by mass legislative election boycott, regime hides behind “Dahdouhism”
According to the European border agency Frontex, 7,910 Algerians were detected crossing the European Union’s borders irregularly between January and August 2026. Algeria thus ranked third among the nationalities of irregular migrants, behind Bangladesh and Sudan, a country devastated by war.
On the Western Mediterranean route, through the Balearic Islands and towards Spain’s coasts, Algerians alone account for more than 40% of crossings. It is also the only migration route into Europe to have recorded an increase this year, up 34% year on year. With youth unemployment estimated at nearly 30% by the World Bank, young people from a gas-rich country are fleeing in makeshift boats. No Moroccan saboteur is responsible for that exodus.
These are the real issues. Not one can be blamed on Morocco. All fall within the responsibility of a regime that manages resource revenues without ever building anything lasting. To avoid being held to account, it needs an enemy. Moroccans fit the bill. Tomorrow, no doubt, they will be blamed for the cost of living.
A diversion ahead of New York
The timing, finally, is hardly incidental. The Security Council is due to adopt a new resolution on the Sahara at the end of October, a year after Resolution 2797 made autonomy the basis for negotiations. Algiers, already lamenting what lies ahead, needs to portray itself as the victim of Moroccan aggression. Sixty-one “saboteurs” could scarcely have appeared at a more convenient moment.
Morocco has the means to respond
In the face of these arrests, Morocco is entitled to protect its nationals through every legal means available to it. These 61 people have the right to legal representation, a fair trial and consular protection from their country.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Human Rights Council and major NGOs can and should be called upon to intervene. A regime that arrests foreigners en masse on the strength of a statement just a few lines long will one day have to answer for it.
In the meantime, Algiers has already revealed the essential truth. It is not Morocco that threatens Algeria. It is the Algerian regime that needs Moroccans in order to exist.
