Algiers — Drug traffickers, who have lost the support of armed groups following the war in Mali, could become more aggressive, experts warned.

"Algeria is fighting a war," Algerian Prime Minister Dahou Ould Kablia told APS on Wednesday (July 24th). "It is a war against a new form of terrorism: drug trafficking."

"There are highly organised gangs in both Morocco and Algeria," he said, adding that there was an "extraordinary level of co-ordination" between these gangs.

To combat this phenomenon, "some thirty or so measures have been adopted by the Algerian government, including allowing the army to step in to tackle drug trafficking", the interior minister said.

Drug traffickers "have lost their biggest helpers, the terrorists, due to the war in Mali and the security situation in the Sahel", Director for Public Security at the National Gendarmerie Mohamed Tahar Ben Naemane said. "Drug traffickers are no longer able to pay terrorists to help them smuggle drugs."

"Instead, they have opted to take on the Algerian security services directly, sometimes with heavy weapons. This explains the large quantities seized in the country," he added.

In a bid to tackle organised crime, including drug trafficking, Algeria is deploying significant security resources by mobilising 1,300 National Gendarmerie brigades, 28 search divisions, eight search brigades and cross-border units totalling 25,000 men.

A total of 78,000kg of cannabis resin was seized during the first six months of 2013, an increase of 9.1 per cent over the same period last year, a report published Wednesday by National Office for Combating Drugs and Drug Addiction (ONLDT) Director-General Mohamed Zouggar stated.

A total of 583,185 psychotropic tablets of various brands, 217.778 grams of cocaine and 6.8 grams of heroin were also seized during the first half of 2013.

Zouggar underlined that cannabis resin and psychotropic tablets "are the most widely consumed drugs" in Algeria by comparison with hard drugs (cocaine and heroin).

Cases dealt with by the courts in 2012 showed that "of the 14,234 people who stood trial and were convicted of drug-related offences, 8,737 were convicted for consuming cannabis and 2,339 were convicted for consuming psychotropic tablets, whereas just 13 people were convicted of consuming heroin," he specified.

"It is not impossible that drug traffickers, who lost a major ally in the terrorist groups, will become more aggressive after the war in Mali," security expert Kamel Aimeur said. "The link between terrorist groups and drug traffickers is proven. And for several years, these terrorists have protected drug traffickers. They paid a high price for this protection, of course."

"Terrorist leaders such as Mohamed Bencheneb, one of the men behind the hostage-taking incident in Tiguentourine, previously smuggled cigarettes on a large scale," Illizi province senator Bouaamama Abbas noted.

"The relationship between terrorism and the trafficking of drugs, cigarettes and other things is a very close one," he added.