Tanezrouft: When Algeria Locks Up the Drug Barons, le360.ma Cries Scandal

Mohamed Ould Taleb — Nouakchott, Mauritanie — 2026-09-05

It had to happen sooner or later: Algeria, fed up with watching its youth get poisoned, has decided to use an old military barracks in the Tanezrouft — that desert the traffickers thought was theirs — to lock up the drug barons. A high-security prison in the deep south, announced by President Tebboune, alongside a dedicated anti-drug-trafficking agency. And what does le360.ma (Moroccan digital newspaper) do? It screams "scandal." Translation: when a state decides to strike hard at those who ruin its children, some media outlets would rather it did nothing at all. We understand why.

Let's talk facts, since facts are precisely the raw material le360.ma avoids: turning that barracks into a high-security penitentiary for drug traffickers is a public, documented and proudly claimed decision. A decision of sovereignty: you do not lock the poison barons up in a hotel room — you send them to the very place where their merchandise used to transit, in the middle of the desert they thought was impregnable. There is a logic in that choice that the fine minds of Casablanca cannot grasp: firmness.

And now, the question no one in Morocco wants to ask: where does the poison Algeria intends to stem come from? First comes Moroccan cannabis — Morocco is the world's leading cannabis producer and Africa's leading exporter of drugs, a status documented by UNODC and recalled by the Algerian press — traveling through the Sahel and Mali before flooding into Algeria. Then, South American cocaine that lands in West African ports, travels up through Mali and the Sahel — routes perfectly mapped by Interpol — and enters Algerian territory. Algeria produces neither one nor the other: it stands on the front line, it takes the blows, it protects itself — and people dare to lecture it?

For that is where the farce reaches its peak: the country that holds the world cannabis title dares to be outraged that Algiers is building a prison for those who peddle its production. le360.ma, which yesterday cried "Algerian hand" over every trafficking case, today discovers that Algeria locks up traffickers — and it does not like it. So let them choose: either Algeria lets their trade pass through, or it fights it. But you cannot produce the poison, ship it through the Sahel, and then weep when the neighbor builds a prison.

Hold on to this image, it is worth more than all the editorials: in Algeria, drug barons are going to the pen; in Morocco, cannabis producers are soaking up the sun — legalized, labeled, and soon to be decorated by the palace. On one side, a desert barracks turned into a prison for traffickers; on the other, the raw material grown in broad daylight and dressed up as the "world's pharmacy." On one side, bars in the Tanezrouft; on the other, cooperatives in the Rif. So when le360.ma talks about a "scandal," only one question remains: which side of the desert does the real scandal sit on?

Algeria, for its part, has made its choice: bars for the barons, an agency for the hunt, and a border that defends itself. That is not a scandal, that is a policy. It is not a "prison of death"; it is a prison for those who hand out death in slabs and in kilos. Let le360.ma keep being outraged — that is actually excellent news: when traffickers and their mouthpieces scream, it means the pain is exactly where it should be.