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Algeria
Intelligence Agencies
Military Security is the principal and most effective intelligence
service in the country. Its chief in 1993, General Mohamed Médiène,
was believed to number among the more influential officers of
the ANP. After Boumediene took power in 1965, he relied on Military
Security to strengthen his control over the ANP during the difficult
process of amalgamating "external" and "internal" ALN personnel,
some of whom were of questionable loyalty. Military Security became
the dominant security service in the 1970s, responsible to the
head of state for monitoring and maintaining files on all potential
sources of opposition to the national leadership.
Although theoretically bound by the same legal restrictions as
the Sûreté and gendarmerie, Military Security is less circumscribed
in its operations. Frequent cases of incommunicado detention of
suspects have been ascribed mainly to Military Security. An important
role in the area of national security was later assumed by the
General Delegation for Documentation and Security (Delégation
Générale de Documentation et Sûreté--DGDS) as the principal civilian
apparatus for conducting foreign intelligence and countering internal
subversion. The security services are believed to infiltrate Islamist
groups, to employ paid informers for monitoring opposition movements,
and to practice extensive telephone surveillance without prior
court authorization as required by law. During and after the riots
of October 1988, widely published accounts told of torture and
other human rights abuses of detainees. Both Military Security
and the DGDS were implicated in the brutal treatment of detainees
to obtain confessions or extract information on clandestine political
activists. Government officials have acknowledged that individual
cases of improper behavior by security forces occurred but stressed
that torture was not sanctioned and that evidence of it would
be investigated.
In September 1990, Benjedid announced the dissolution of the
DGDS after criticism of its repressive role in the 1988 riots.
The dissolution coincided with other government reforms to remove
barriers to individual liberties. Informed sources believed, however,
that this action did not represent an end to domestic intelligence
operations but rather a transfer of DGDS functions to other security
bodies. Surveying the intelligence picture in August 1992, the
French periodical Jeune Afrique concluded that Military
Security, with its abundant documentation on the leadership and
organization of the violent Islamist groups, remained the senior
intelligence body concerned with internal security. Other intelligence
groups include a Coordinating Directorate of Territorial Security,
an Antiterrorist Detachment, and a working group of the High Council
of State charged with political and security matters. The precise
functions and jurisdictions of these bodies remain fluid, according
to Jeune Afrique.
Data as of December 1993
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