In February 2026, Algeria officially announced its intention to terminate a bilateral air transport agreement signed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2013. The following day, the Algerian president, without explicitly naming the UAE, hinted at the destabilizing role he attributes to the Gulf state, notably accusing it of attempting to interfere in Algerian elections.
This decision unfolded against a broader backdrop of escalating regional tensions. Since December 2025, relations between the UAE and its Saudi neighbor have deteriorated, as the growing rivalry between the two largest Arab economies appeared to spill over into multiple theatres across their regional environment.
More importantly, Algeria – the largest Arab country by landmass – and the UAE have been locked in a simmering feud since 2019, reflected in a series of hostile political declarations—including from the president and the national television broadcaster—and in economic measures directed at Abu Dhabi. Observers have therefore speculated that Algiers may be seeking to exploit the emerging Saudi–Emirati rift to settle its own scores with the UAE.
To assess this possibility, the protracted episode of tensions between Algiers and Abu Dhabi, marked by several developments and overlapping layers, must be examined in greater detail.
Divergent Paths
The current Algerian leadership emerged from the collapse of the political order built under President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who ruled Algeria from 1999 to 2019. Bouteflika resigned following the Hirak, a popular protest movement which started in February 2019 and forced him from power two months later, after years of debilitating illness beginning in 2011. His career had long placed him close to the apex of the Algerian state: after serving fifteen years as minister of foreign affairs (1963–1979), he was later sidelined and spent nearly a decade in exile until 1987. It was during this period that Bouteflika forged close ties with Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding president of the UAE and father of the current Emirati head of state, Mohammed bin Zayed. Once in office, Bouteflika consistently ensured that Emirati interests in Algeria were protected. The fall of the Bouteflika clan (Abdelaziz died in 2021, while his younger brother Saïd Bouteflika has been repeatedly sentenced to long prison terms) has led to a rupture of communication channels and trust at the highest levels of both states, laying the ground for and marking the beginning of a chain of events that gradually accumulated, ultimately culminating in the current rupture.
After Bouteflika’s removal, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and the military–security establishment adopted a domestic and foreign policy discourse centred on Algeria’s sovereignty and revolutionary legacy, drawing on Cold War narratives and its historical support for liberation movements, including Palestine. This framework also underpins Algeria’s backing of the Polisario Front against Morocco over Western Sahara. Within this context, tensions with the UAE reflect broader regional reconfigurations in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel. Over the past five years, Algerian authorities have increasingly feared that coordinated actions by actors perceived as hostile, such as Israel, Morocco, and the UAE, could marginalise Algeria regionally and ultimately threaten its sovereignty and state integrity.
The Diminished Standing of a Hopeful Hegemon
In Northwest Africa, the Algeria–Morocco rivalry, a structural feature of the region’s geopolitics, took a dramatic turn in the year following the onset of the Hirak protests (February 2019) and the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (April 2019). In October 2020, Abu Dhabi announced the opening of its Consulate General in Laayoune. That same month, Morocco moved to secure a border post between Western Sahara and Mauritania, thereby breaking the longstanding status quo in the area, and expelled Polisario forces from it. In December 2020, Morocco signed its own normalization agreement with Israel.
This rapid succession of developments not only reshaped the regional diplomatic landscape but also deepened Algerian perceptions of strategic isolation. Tensions escalated further in August 2021, when, during a visit to Rabat, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs publicly criticized Algeria’s regional role and pointed to its alleged proximity to Iran. In the eastern part of North Africa, Algeria has also viewed with deep concern the support Abu Dhabi has provided to Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces coalition. Haftar’s attempts to control territories adjacent to Algeria, in areas marked by dense familial, tribal, and trade ties across the border, have raised alarms in Algiers. More broadly, the UAE’s entrenchment in Libya has contributed to Algeria’s growing sense of encirclement within the Maghreb, where it remains the largest state in terms of economic output and population.
Paling Star in the South
The Sahel has long constituted a traditional sphere of influence for Algeria. Algiers has typically played the role of mediator in the recurrent crises pitting Tuareg rebel movements against the central governments of Mali and Niger, most recently through the 2015 peace deal, known as the Algiers Agreements.
In January 2024, the decision of the Malian authorities to withdraw from these Agreements and return to a logic of confrontation with Tuareg groups led to a rapid deterioration of relations between Algeria, on the one hand, and the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS), bringing together Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger on the other. The latter three countries thus recalled their respective ambassadors to Algeria.
This episode unfolded in a context in which Morocco has actively sought to strengthen its ties with Sahelian states. In November 2023, King Mohammed VI announced an international initiative aimed at “unlocking” the Sahel. In April 2025, the UAE has also expanded its footprint in the Sahel. In 2023, approximately 50% of Mali’s goods exports were directed toward the UAE, all of them consisting of gold. Abu Dhabi has continued to provide financial support to ASS countries while simultaneously expanding its presence in the eastern Sahel, particularly in Chad and Sudan.
The Great Post-October 7th Reshuffle
Developments in the Middle East following October 7 have also been a source of concern for Algeria, as Israel has appeared increasingly willing to degrade—and in some cases eliminate—its regional adversaries. The collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024 constituted another shock for Algiers, which had consistently defended Assad’s government as Syria’s legitimate authority. The fear of dismantlement has been particularly apparent in Algerian media reports emphasizing alleged links between the UAE and the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), a separatist movement advocating independence for the Kabylia region. While no publicly verifiable evidence or official confirmation from either the UAE or the MAK has substantiated these claims, such anxieties have resonated with broader regional developments.
In conclusion, Algeria’s recent backlash against the United Arab Emirates has been driven by the perception that Abu Dhabi’s regional activism contributes to reshaping regional power balances in ways considered detrimental to Algerian interests. From this standpoint, Algeria has positioned itself in favour of a broader recalibration of the Arab order.
At the same time, Algiers’ growing assertiveness can also be understood in light of a relative improvement in its regional standing. On February 8–9, delegations from Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, the Polisario Front, and the United States convened in Madrid to discuss the future of Western Sahara—a process the current US administration appears eager to bring to a conclusion in the coming months. In parallel, relations between Algeria and Niger have shown signs of thawing.
Taken together, these dynamics suggest that Algeria’s posture toward the UAE reflects the perception in Algiers that a window of opportunity has opened to push back against what it views as external encroachment within its sphere of influence. Whether such a strategy can meaningfully reverse the gradual, and largely self-inflicted, erosion of Algeria’s regional influence, however, remains an open question.
