Abdelhakim Yamani, with the Strategic Watch and Digital Analysis Department, Horizons Geopolitical Institute April 22nd 2025
ENGLISH VERSION
Introduction: Self-Orchestration to Avoid Sanctions
The sudden emergence of the hashtag #تبون_لا_تذهب_للعراق (« Tebboune, don’t go to Iraq ») on April 20, 2025, appears to be a sophisticated maneuver orchestrated by the Algerian regime itself to create a pretext allowing President Tebboune to avoid attending the 34th Arab League Summit scheduled in Baghdad on May 17, 2025. This fabricated digital campaign comes as Algeria faces the prospect of imminent sanctions, potentially including suspension from the Arab League, for its destabilizing actions against Morocco and its controversial support for the former Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
I. A Regime Facing Sanctions: Algeria’s Serious Transgressions
I. A Regime Facing Sanctions: Algeria’s Serious TransgressionsA. Deliberate Actions Against Morocco’s Territorial Integrity
This digital campaign emerges in a context where Algeria faces imminent sanctions within the Arab League. As early as December 2024, high-level diplomatic sources confirmed advanced discussions between several member countries regarding a procedure to exclude Algeria, an unprecedented measure in the organization’s history.
This critical situation directly results from Algiers’ deliberate actions against Morocco’s territorial integrity. The organization of a « Rif Day » on November 23, 2024, accompanied by the confirmed financing of a separatist « Rifian National Party » to the tune of 10 million euros, constitutes a flagrant violation of the Arab League’s fundamental principles. This initiative was not a simple diplomatic reaction but a deliberate destabilization strategy aimed at creating a new separatist hotbed in northern Morocco, in retaliation for the growing international recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara.
B. Controversial Involvement in Syria: Support for a Deposed Regime
The second charge against Algeria concerns its unwavering support for the former regime of Bashar al-Assad, now overthrown. Credible information confirms the current presence of Algerian military personnel and Polisario militiamen in Syrian prisons, having been dispatched to support Assad’s army during critical phases of the conflict. This alliance with a regime internationally condemned for crimes against humanity places Algeria in direct contradiction with the Arab consensus that has emerged around the new Syrian government.
Tebboune’s participation in the Baghdad summit would be particularly problematic with the confirmed attendance of the new Syrian President Ahmad al-Charaa. This diplomatically untenable situation explains the urgent search for a pretext to avoid a direct confrontation that would expose Algiers’ total isolation on the Syrian question. The precedent of boycotting the extraordinary Cairo summit in March 2025 provided a model that the Algerian regime now seeks to reproduce, but with an apparently popular justification.
II. The #تبون_لا_تذهب_للعراق Campaign: A Fabrication of the Algerian Apparatus
II. The #تبون_لا_تذهب_للعراق Campaign: A Fabrication of the Algerian ApparatusA. The Revealing Anomaly of Nepal: An Undeniable Signature of Algerian Services
Data analysis highlights a determining technical indicator that betrays the true origin of this campaign: the statistical appearance of Nepal as the main country of origin for mentions. This spectacular geographical anomaly constitutes a perfectly identifiable digital signature of operations conducted by the Algerian Directorate of Security Services (DSS), which systematically uses troll farms and VPN infrastructures based in this Himalayan country to conceal its influence activities.
The presence of Nepal as the dominant source of publications leaves no doubt about the state orchestration of this campaign. Our previous analyses of Algerian digital operations have regularly identified this same Nepalese signature, particularly during campaigns against Morocco in 2023 and operations targeting France in 2024. This technical recurrence demonstrates not only the Algerian origin of the campaign but also its direct management by the same specialized DSS units, using identical technical infrastructure.
This atypical geographical marker represents a significant operational error that unequivocally attributes the campaign to Algerian services, revealing their intention to fabricate an artificial popular opposition movement to justify Tebboune’s absence at the Baghdad summit.
B. Characteristics of Self-Orchestration
In-depth technical analysis of the data confirms the artificial nature of this campaign, which presents all the markers of an operation set up by the Algerian services themselves:
1. Synchronized deployment without identifiable trigger: Complete absence of activity before April 20, 2025, followed by an instantaneous and coordinated activation on April 21, without any public event that could justify such mobilization.
2. Strategic concentration on TikTok: 12 mentions on TikTok and 4 on YouTube, two platforms where account traceability is more difficult, deliberately avoiding Twitter/X where authentication is more rigorous.
3. Pyramidal distribution structure: A main account (Amine Mellit) concentrating 44.87% of voice share, with secondary relays activated according to a pattern typical of service-directed operations.
4. Uniformity of messages without real debate: Absence of any form of deliberation or diversity of opinions, characteristic of a prefabricated message disseminated by controlled accounts.
This digital campaign clearly appears as a fabricated alibi to justify Tebboune’s imminent absence from the Baghdad summit, allowing him to claim he is responding to « popular pressure » rather than admitting his fear of facing the sanctions that await him.
III. Imminent Sanctions: A Reminder of December 2024 Predictions
Our analysis of December 2, 2024, on discussions regarding Algeria’s exclusion from the Arab League proves prescient today. We wrote then, based on high-level diplomatic sources:
— « Discreet but intense contacts are multiplying between several member countries to prepare a procedure for excluding Algeria from the pan-Arab organization. These discussions, conducted in the greatest confidentiality, testify to growing exasperation with the policy of destabilization led by Algiers. »
The options considered five months ago remain relevant and explain the desperate maneuver of the Algerian regime to avoid the humiliation of a formal sanction at the Baghdad summit. Let us recall the three scenarios we identified in December:
1. Total exclusion, requiring unanimity among members
2. Temporary suspension following the Syrian precedent of 2011
3. A formal ultimatum demanding the immediate cessation of all destabilizing activities
Our sources indicate that the second scenario – a temporary suspension – is now the most likely and could be formalized at the Baghdad summit in Tebboune’s absence. This prospect explains the hasty fabrication of a digital campaign designed to justify his absence and allow him to claim he is responding to popular pressure rather than fleeing the consequences of his actions.
IV. Stakes of the Orchestrated Absence at the Baghdad Summit
A. Avoiding Confrontation on the Syrian Question
One of the main motives for this avoidance maneuver concerns the Syrian question. The confirmed presence of the new Syrian President Ahmad al-Charaa at the Baghdad summit places Algeria in an untenable position. How could Tebboune stand alongside the new Syrian leader when Algerian military personnel and Polisario militiamen sent to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime are currently in Syrian prisons?
This extremely embarrassing situation represents a toxic legacy of Algiers’ unwavering alliance with Assad’s deposed regime. The dispatch of military personnel and Polisario fighters to support the Syrian regime’s repression now constitutes a major diplomatic liability, especially as the new Syrian government might choose the Baghdad summit to publicly reveal the extent of this controversial collaboration.
B. Escaping Condemnation on the Moroccan Issue
The question of Morocco’s territorial integrity constitutes the second major motive for this diversionary campaign. The organization of the « Rif Day » and massive funding of a separatist movement in northern Morocco have been perceived as an unacceptable provocation by a majority of Arab League members.
Data in our possession indicates that several countries, particularly the Gulf monarchies, have prepared a draft resolution explicitly condemning these actions and reaffirming the League’s support for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Morocco, both in the Sahara and in its northern provinces. Faced with this prospect of collective diplomatic humiliation, creating a pretext to avoid the summit appears as a desperate attempt to escape formal condemnation.
This avoidance strategy illustrates the impasse in which Algerian diplomacy finds itself, unable to defend its extreme positions against the Arab consensus that has formed around respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states.
V. Conclusion: A Strategy of Avoidance Through Self-Victimization
The #تبون_لا_تذهب_للعراق digital campaign illustrates a sophisticated but transparent strategy of self-victimization by the Algerian regime. By orchestrating a pseudo-popular opposition to Tebboune’s participation in the Baghdad summit, the Algerian government attempts to transform an embarrassing diplomatic retreat into an apparent gesture of respect for public opinion.
Technical analysis of this campaign leaves no doubt as to its fabricated nature: the Nepalese digital footprint, synchronized deployment without identifiable trigger, and pyramidal distribution structure are all signatures of influence operations directed by Algerian services.
This desperate maneuver comes as Algeria faces imminent sanctions within the Arab League for its actions against Morocco’s territorial integrity and its controversial support for Bashar al-Assad’s former Syrian regime. By avoiding the Baghdad summit, Tebboune seeks to escape the humiliation of collective condemnation by his Arab peers and the embarrassing confrontation with the new Syrian president.
However, this avoidance strategy through self-victimization marks a new level in Algiers’ diplomatic isolation. Far from resolving the fundamental problems that have led to this critical situation, it only confirms the Algerian regime’s inability to adapt to the new geopolitical realities of the Arab world and to assume the consequences of its contested strategic choices.
