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Rabat — In a stunning blow to Algeria’s military establishment, General Abdelkader Haddad, the former director of the powerful DGSI (General Directorate of Internal Security), has successfully fled the country to Spain, carrying with him potentially explosive state secrets that could destabilize the regime of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Haddad, known by his alias “Nacer El Djinn,” escaped between September 18-19 aboard a speedboat across the Mediterranean to Alicante, according to Spanish media outlet El Confidencial.
The irony is palpable: a man who once controlled Algeria’s internal security apparatus fled like a “harrag” — the local term for clandestine migrants who risk their lives crossing the sea.
From protégé to fugitive
Haddad’s fall from grace was as swift as it was dramatic. Appointed to head the DGSI in 2024 by Tebboune himself, he was meant to secure the system, not blow it apart. Yet within months, he was dismissed, imprisoned, and placed under house arrest in Algiers. While official explanations remain absent, converging reports suggest he had gotten too close to corruption networks linked to Tebboune’s inner circle.
The general’s escape was not just an operational failure — it was a humiliation. Despite being under tight surveillance, Haddad managed the unthinkable. Upon arriving in Spain, he reportedly declared: “I was going to be assassinated before my trial, and my death would have been disguised as suicide.” This accusation strikes directly at the heart of Tebboune and Army Chief of Staff Said Chengriha’s credibility.
A system that devours its own
Haddad is no ordinary defector; he is a veteran of Algeria’s brutal civil war of the 1990s, and he was both accused of atrocities and respected as a strategic mastermind. He knows the military power structure intimately, and his files could potentially destroy the regime’s carefully constructed facade.
This escape is particularly damaging because it’s not Haddad’s first. Converging reports said he had already fled to Alicante in 2022 before being quietly “repatriated” and rehabilitated.
That the same man managed to repeat this feat two years later, despite enhanced security measures, reveals the chronic weakness of Algeria’s supposedly unerring security apparatus.
Converging statistics are telling: more than 200 senior officers, including around 30 generals, currently languish in Algeria’s prisons. The military system literally devours its own, where yesterday’s chiefs become tomorrow’s prisoners.
Panic in the capital
The Algerian regime’s response exposed its fragility. Algiers was effectively under siege: helicopters buzzed overhead, roadblocks paralyzed traffic, and security forces conducted sweeping raids. The capital’s atmosphere evoked the dark years of the 1990s civil conflict. Yet the operation was futile — El Djinn had vanished.
The regime’s initial silence spoke volumes. In a system where official propaganda typically trumpets every minor security “victory,” this deafening quiet was the most eloquent confession of disaster. Claims of a “voluntary arrest” and “negotiated surrender” circulated briefly on September 21, but were quickly contradicted by the confirmed escape.
A pandora’s box of secrets
What makes Haddad’s flight particularly dangerous for the regime is his intimate knowledge of Algeria’s most sensitive operations. According to Italian magazine Panorama, his revelations could “crack the geopolitical scaffolding built by Algiers over recent decades, projecting instability not only in the Maghreb but throughout the Sahel.”
Among the explosive files Haddad possesses are details about Algeria’s support for the Polisario Front, a separatist movement with claims in the Western Sahara, which extends far beyond diplomatic backing. The regime has allegedly provided logistical support, weapons, and haven to armed groups operating across Mali, Niger, and Mauritania.
The Tindouf refugee camps have reportedly become a hub for illicit trafficking and a base for militias destabilizing the region.
Algeria has allegedly served as Iran’s strategic partner for extending influence in North Africa. The cooperation involves the Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) working with the Polisario, mediated by Algerian services, including drone supplies and paramilitary training. For Iran, supporting the Sahrawi separatists weakens Morocco — historically aligned with the US and Israel — while opening pressure points on Europe via Sahel migration routes.
Additionally, Haddad reportedly holds files on widespread fraud in presidential elections, corruption networks, and infiltration operations that could expose the regime’s manufactured legitimacy.
The cracking foundation
Haddad’s escape represents more than an individual defection — it’s a symptom of a system in crisis. The military-presidential regime that has controlled Algeria for decades, is showing fatal cracks. Built on opacity, manipulation, and authoritarian control, it cannot contain its own monsters.
Every moment of El Djinn’s exile represents a threat to the regime, because he possesses weapons more dangerous than any military arsenal: files full of secrets.
If he talks, Algiers’ entire facade could collapse. In a country where opacity has become the rule, this affair has already achieved the essential — it has cracked the wall of fear and shown that even the system’s heart is vulnerable.
The man who once hunted Algeria’s enemies has become its most dangerous fugitive, carrying 35 years of secrets, compromises, and violence in his memory. For Tebboune and Chengriha, the nightmare has only just begun.
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