Military of Algeria:
The military of Algeria is the direct successor of the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), the armed wing of the nationalist National Liberation Front, which fought French colonial rule during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962).
The Algerian military elite have long played an important role in Algerian politics; some high-ranking officers have held public office, and through more indirect means of influencing policy. After being structured as a politicized "people's army" in the Houari Boumédiène era, and retaining its allegiance to the FLN during the single-party years of Algerian history, the military forces were formally depoliticized in 1988, as a multi-party system was introduced.
In 1992, fearing the installation of Sharia Law, which would result in Algeria becoming an Islamic State, the Algerian Army stopped an Islamist electoral takeover, triggering the Algerian Civil War. The state and military side broke Islamist resistance in the late 1990s, but local and sporadic fighting persists in 2007; the army is presently engaged in refitting itself for the tasks of a conventional army, after more than a decade of anti-guerrilla action.
[edit] Size of forces
The People's National Army consists of 127,500 members, with some 150,000 reservists. The army is under the control of the president (currently Abdelaziz Bouteflika), who also is minister of National Defense. Military expenditures accounted for some $4.67 billion or 4.5% of GDP. One and a half years of national military service is compulsory for males.
The Armed forces of Algeria comprise:
[edit] Equipment and international relations
Its primary military supplier has been the former Soviet Union, which has sold various types of sophisticated equipment under military trade agreements, and the People's Republic of China. Algeria has attempted, in recent years, to diversify its sources of military material. Military forces are supplemented by a 45,000-member gendarmerie or rural police force under the control of the president and 30,000-member Sûreté nationale or Metropolitan police force under the Ministry of the Interior.
Recently, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 28 MiG-29SMT and six MiG-29UBT at an estimated $1.5 Billion. They also agreed to return old airplanes purchased from the Former USSR.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
|
