This article was taken from Menas Associates’ Algeria Politics & Security publication.

We are reminded that it is the 24th anniversary of one of the most important terrorist acts in recent Algerian history. On 26th August 1992 a bomb exploded at Algiers’ Houari Boumédiène airport killing nine people and wounding 128 others. At the time, there were suspicions about who was behind the bombing. Eleven people were arrested with at least five, mostly prominent members of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) being hanged a year later.

We now have overwhelming evidence that the bomb was planted by the DRS. Its aim was to shock the foreign world, with the result that the government received massive support from France, other Western powers and the Arab World. It also went a long way to bringing the ‘eradicators’ together and to some extent justified their actions in what became the ‘dirty war’ of the 1990s.

It has now been established that the DRS arranged for a phone message to be sent to the various security departments and official agencies, such as Customs, working at the airport, warning them that a bomb was going to go off in ten minutes. This enabled all government and security officials to evacuate the airport. There was, however, no warning given to the civilians.