Algerian security services claimed Wednesday (October 13th) to have foiled armed attacks that a Kabyle separatist group was planning with the help of accomplices abroad, media reported.
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In a statement reproduced by the media, the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) announced that the police had this week dismantled a network linked to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), classified as "
terrorist
" by the Algeria, and arrested 17 people in the prefectures of Tizi Ouzou, Bejaïa and Bouira, in Kabylia (northeast). Those arrested planned to carry out "
armed actions aimed at undermining the security of the country with the complicity of internal parties advocating separatism,
" added the DGSN. According to the statement, the suspects confessed to having been "
in permanent contact via internet with foreign parties operating under the guise of associations and organizations of civil society and based in the Zionist entity (Israel) and in a country of North Africa
”, according to the same source.
The North African country singled out was not named, but Algeria severed ties with neighboring Morocco in August which it accuses of supporting MAK, a red line for Algiers that opposes any desire for independence in Kabylia, a Berber-speaking region in the northeast of the country. Before this rupture, Algiers had recalled in July its ambassador to Rabat for consultations after the representative of Morocco at the UN circulated during a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement a note in which he considered that "
the valiant Kabyle people deserve (...) to fully enjoy their right to self-determination
".
The Moroccan diplomat then expressed his support for Kabyle separatism in reaction to the support given by Algiers to the Polisario separatists in Western Sahara who are fighting Morocco.
Read also Algeria: the Kabyle movement MAK refutes any plan to attack
The recent normalization of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel - in return for an American recognition of
Moroccan
"
sovereignty
" over this disputed territory - has further heightened tensions with Algeria, fervent support of the Palestinian cause.
