The diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Morocco threatens an armed escalation.

"Three Algerians were murdered in a barbaric attack," said the Algerian President's office in a statement distributed by the APS news agency: their deaths would “not go unpunished”.

According to Algerian accounts, the three traders were on their way from the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott through the Western Sahara annexed by Morocco to the Algerian city of Ouargla on Monday.

There are indications that "the Moroccan occupation forces in Western Sahara carried out this cowardly attack with a sophisticated weapon," the statement said.

Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in August.

Hans-Christian Rößler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb, based in Madrid.

  • Follow I follow

So far there has been no official statement from Morocco.

The AFP news agency quoted an unnamed source in Rabat who denied the Algerian allegations and stressed that Morocco “does not allow itself to be drawn into a war”.

The Spanish Morocco expert Ignacio Cembrero speaks of a Moroccan drone attack.

"The most likely retaliation from Algeria will be the unleashing of the Polisario Front," he said, referring to the armed conflict between the Polisario Liberation Front, which fights for an independent Western Sahara, and the Moroccan army.

Algeria stopped the gas transfer

Algeria supports the Polisario, while Morocco is calling on the international community to follow the example of former American President Donald Trump and recognize Moroccan claims to Western Sahara. A year ago, after 29 years, the Polisario declared the ceasefire over and attacked the Moroccan military.

The Western Sahara conflict played an important role in the recent break in diplomatic relations. Algiers also accuses Morocco of supporting separatists in Algeria, of spying on the government and of being the "bridgehead of Israel" in the Maghreb. After the government in Algiers had withdrawn the overflight rights for Moroccan aircraft, another step followed last weekend that is much more painful for the neighboring country: Algeria stopped the gas transfer through the almost 1,400-kilometer “Maghreb-Europe” pipeline that crosses Moroccan territory leads to Spain. Morocco had received seven percent of the gas for this as a kind of license fee; that was around 700 million cubic meters annually. Around a tenth of Moroccan electricity generation has so far depended on natural gas from Algeria,which was mainly used for peak demand. An alternative now is the import of liquefied petroleum gas by tankers, which is more expensive, however. In the longer term, Morocco is working on increasing the proportion of renewable energy sources.

The conflict in the Maghreb also has consequences in Europe.

Algeria is Spain's most important gas supplier, which continues to be supplied directly with natural gas via the Medgaz pipeline.

However, this only compensates for part of the previous deliveries.

A large part now has to be liquefied and transported to Spain by tanker.