Algeria Beefs Up Posts on Morocco Border

November 20, 2008 8:09 a.m. EST

(TML) - Algeria is erecting 23 new guard posts along the border with Morocco in order to tighten control over smuggling of arms and narcotics and infiltration of terrorists across the border.

The new guard posts will be located in the Tlemcen province and will be managed by customs, the director of Tlemcen Customs said, according to the Algerian daily Al-Khabar.

Algerian security officials stressed this did not signal the borders would be reopened.

Morocco's King Muhammad VI recently criticized Algeria for refusing to normalize relations with Morocco and reopen the border closed in 1994. The king said this policy was "illogical" and said a distinction should be made between the regional dispute over the Sahara and the need for improved bilateral relations between the two countries.

Algeria rejects Moroccan administration of the Western Sahara, which Morocco annexed after Spain and Mauritania withdrew in the 1970s.

Each country accuses the other of harboring fighters and arms smuggling.

Dr. Jack Kalpakian, a political scientist at Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, said this did not necessarily indicate a worsening of relations between the two countries, which have been bad for quite some time.

Morocco, he said, is concerned that the real motive behind beefing up the guard posts is for military purposes rather than policing. However, it is likely that this is a genuine effort to clamp down on the rampant illegal trade over the border, a large part of which is not even demarcated.

"A lot of smuggling goes on back and forth and it's very difficult to control," Kalpakian told The Media Line. "It's cost both governments a lot of money in lost revenue and lost degrees of security."

"At the moment we have no way of assessing whether Algeria's motive in building these is to enhance security and reduce smuggling or something more sinister," he added.