Algeria Approves Its First Such Foreign Deployment Since 1973
Both chambers of Algeria’s parliament have approved sending troops to Niger to protect energy installations in the north, near the Libyan border. It would be the country’s first such deployment since it sent forces to Egypt during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Neither the timing nor the number of soldiers has been announced.
For a state whose foreign policy has rested for half a century on not sending soldiers anywhere, this is the interesting part: the mission is explicitly commercial. A senator told reporters after the vote that “we are not sending our soldiers to wage war in Niger, but for a mission to secure economic infrastructure”, calling it an adaptation of doctrine to the Sahel. The infrastructure is Algeria’s own — its state energy company has signed an exploration agreement with Niger’s petroleum ministry, and a long-planned pipeline would carry Nigerian gas north through Niger. The upper house sat in emergency session on Sunday, where 148 of 174 senators voted in favour; one account calls the vote unanimous, which that figure contradicts, so the count is given instead. The deployment follows a visit to Algiers by Niger’s defence minister and a thaw after a rift that saw Niger recall its ambassador, and it comes after Algeria sent fighter jets to help put down a coup attempt against the general who took power in 2023. Algeria is Africa’s largest military spender.