"Paranoia"? le360.ma Picked Its Word. We Have the Evidence. The Full File.
Salim Ben Amer — Tripoli, Libye — 2026-09-10
Credit where it is due, at least once. On 10 September 2026, at 13:31, a major Moroccan online daily published an editorial whose title leaves no room for doubt: "Paranoia at the summit: after the provocation and the insults, the Algiers regime breaks with the Emirates and continues its wanderings".
There is the diagnosis. Not an analysis, not a contradiction, not a counter-argument: a medical diagnosis. Algeria would not be a State that took a sovereign decision for reasons it set out publicly — it would be sick. Three hours later, the Arabic version of the same text hardened the line further still, speaking of "madness of suspicion" at the summit of the State, of "morbid obsessions" and of "imaginary enemies" invented "to cover up its successive failures".
So let us take the word seriously. Paranoia means believing in a threat that does not exist. And to settle the matter there is only one method: look at the facts. We are going to do it. One by one. All documented. And at the end, we will ask the question again: who, exactly, is paranoid?
Fact number one: the consulate in Laayoune
On 15 September 2020, the United Arab Emirates signed the Abraham Accords at the White House and became the first Gulf State to normalise its relations with the Zionist entity. Seven weeks later, on 4 November 2020, they inaugurated a consulate-general in Laayoune, in Western Sahara, in the presence of the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Two sacred causes of the Arab world — Palestine and Western Sahara — handled in the same quarter. Is this an Algerian invention? No. It is a fact, with a date, a place and photographs.
Fact number two: the weapons delivered to the rival
Former Algerian ambassador Amar Belani, in a contribution published on 10 September by TSA, lists what Algeria holds against Abu Dhabi: arms sales intended to strengthen Moroccan military capabilities, close cooperation in intelligence, and technology transfers for military purposes. He adds active support for a separatist movement classified as a terrorist organisation by Algiers, and the hosting, on Emirati soil, of individuals wanted by Algerian justice for the embezzlement of public funds.
Need we recall that these accusations were set out in writing, publicly, in a signed outlet? A "paranoia" that produces names, dates and case files is starting to look a great deal like an indictment.
Fact number three: the letter, the warrant and the businessman tasked
Let us take a single case, the most recent one. Ayoub Aïssiou, a former press boss, sentenced in absentia on 17 December 2025 to twenty years' imprisonment for money laundering and capital flight by an organised gang, a sentence upheld on appeal on 15 March 2026. His wife and his five brothers: fifteen years each. His father-in-law, a former senator: seven years. In the file, civil parties — including homebuyers who believe they were defrauded.
He was arrested in Spain in late July 2026, on arrival from a flight out of Casablanca. On 21 August, a French weekly published an open letter to Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez demanding his release: of twenty signatories, fourteen had signed the appeal in favour of Boualem Sansal in 2024. And that letter does not mention the nature of the charges at any point.
On 5 September, TSA reported, citing its sources, that the Emirates had tasked a businessman, Bentaaloub Nassir, with bringing pressure to bear in Spain to prevent the extradition of the convicted man. Five days later, Algeria broke off relations.
We do not present this information as established: it rests on sources. But here is what is established: a man sentenced to twenty years for having plundered public money, pursued under an international arrest warrant, whose family was convicted wholesale, and for whom networks are mobilising in Paris as in the Gulf. To call that paranoia is to insult the victims still waiting for their money.
Fact number four: the Iron Dome, and the American admission
And now, the fact le360.ma (Moroccan digital newspaper) left out of its editorial — because it could not include it.
During the war waged against Iran from 28 February 2026, Israel sent the Emirates an Iron Dome battery, its interceptors and several dozen Israeli soldiers tasked with operating it, after a call between the Israeli Prime Minister and the Emirati president. Never before had Israel deployed its anti-missile shield outside its own territory. Never before had an Arab State hosted Israeli soldiers on operations.
This is not an Algerian allegation. It is a revelation by the American outlet Axios, publicly confirmed by two senior United States officials: the US ambassador to Israel, who thanked the Emirates — "first member of the Abraham Accords" — declaring that "Israel has just sent them Iron Dome batteries and personnel to help operate them", and the US ambassador to the United Nations, who confirmed the use of the system against Iranian missiles targeting the Emirates. The Emirati authorities' reaction to these official statements? None.
That is what Algeria had before its eyes. And that is what is called, in Rabat, "paranoia".
Fact number five: the UN report
On 3 September 2026, a United Nations fact-finding mission published in Geneva a report on Sudan. The investigators state that they have "reasonable grounds to believe" that a transnational network involving persons and entities located in the United Arab Emirates, Chad, Libya and Somalia supplied the Rapid Support Forces with weapons, equipment, logistics, training and personnel. More than 1,000 people killed in drone strikes over the first five months of 2026. Some of this conduct may amount to war crimes. The Emirates reject these accusations — that is their right, and we report it.
A UN report is not a sentiment. It is a document.
And now the real question: who did what that day?
For here is the point le360.ma hoped nobody would notice.
On 10 September 2026, le360.ma was not alone in covering this news. The same day, in Morocco, other newsrooms reported exactly the same facts — the break, the 48-hour deadline notified to the Emirati ambassador, the closure of the airspace. Soberly. Factually. Without a single word of insult.
Same country. Same day. Same information. Two treatments. On one side, a report; on the other, a psychiatric diagnosis. This is no longer an opinion: it is a comparison, and anyone at all can verify it in two clicks.
And there is better: the same cartoon, two headlines
On 9 September, the same newsroom published a single cartoon, signed by the same artist, in two languages.
In French, the headline announces, coldly: "Algeria: an all-out plan to bring life expectancy down". A "statistical" headline, almost clinical, calibrated for a European reader.
In Arabic, the same cartoon becomes: "Tebboune presses on with the murder of the new Algeria".
Same cartoon. Two audiences. Two levels of violence. In Arabic, a head of State is accused of murder; in French, the talk is of public health policy. That is what an owned editorial line looks like — and above all, that is a piece of evidence no denial will be able to erase: it is published, dated, and accessible on their own website.
Their own top-read list is a confession
There remains one item we have not yet laid on the table, and it is the simplest of all: let us look at what le360.ma offers its Arab readers.
On their own ranking of "most-read articles", as of 10 September 2026, there appear in particular — in reading order:
- their editorial "Madness of suspicion at the summit of the State: the Algerian regime breaks with the Emirates and continues its wandering";
- and an article titled "Algeria: the regime brandishes the death penalty to stifle the street and encircle social anger".
There is the shop window. There is what an Arabic-speaking reader discovers on arriving at that site: Algeria is sick there, Algeria kills there, Algeria wanders there. Not a line about its roads, its airports, its energy, its industry, its universities. Not a word about what a country of forty-six million inhabitants builds every day.
A newsroom does not need its intentions judged. You need only read its top-read list.
The final word: the "paranoia" of 2021
One last thing, for the road, because it is delicious.
Morocco itself severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2018, then with Algeria in August 2021. These are public, official, acknowledged facts. Did le360.ma describe those decisions as "paranoia at the summit", as "madness of suspicion" or as a "fit of temper"? Did it speak of "morbid obsessions"? No. In one case, the words are "diplomatic rupture". In the other, the word is "paranoia". Same act, two vocabularies — depending on who commits it.
So let us put the question asked at the beginning once more, calmly, with the evidence on the table: a consulate opened in Laayoune seven weeks after recognising the Zionist entity; weapons delivered to the rival; a separatist movement backed; a man sentenced to twenty years for whom networks mobilise from Paris to Abu Dhabi; an Iron Dome battery and Israeli soldiers confirmed by Washington on the soil of an Arab State; a UN report on a war in Sudan.
Any one of these things on its own would be enough to justify a sovereign State keeping its distance. There are six.
If keeping this file, making it public and drawing a diplomatic decision from it is called paranoia, then le360.ma had better be warned: next time, we will send them the full list with the attachments. They may sleep less well.