Algeria nation profile – BBC Information

Algeria, a gateway between Africa and Europe, has been battered by violence over the previous half-century.

There are conflicting experiences concerning the demise toll throughout the conflict towards France for independence within the Nineteen Fifties and early 60s. French historians estimate that as much as 400,000 Algerians have been killed, whereas the Algerian authorities says a couple of million individuals died.

The nation later endured a brutal inside battle after when elections that Islamists appeared sure to win have been cancelled in 1992; a low-level Islamist insurgency nonetheless impacts Algeria.

The Sahara desert covers greater than four-fifths of the land. Algeria is the continent’s largest nation, and is the world’s tenth largest.

Oil and gasoline reserves have been found there within the Nineteen Fifties, however most Algerians stay alongside the northern coast.

Abdelmadjid Tebboune gained the December 2019 presidential election from a subject candidates all related to the period of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the long-serving head of state pressured out of workplace by mass protests in April.

The opposition boycotted the election, demanding a clear sweep of the military-dominated elite and a sustained marketing campaign towards corruption.

Mr Tebboune has pledged to hold out the mandatory reforms, however the former civil servant faces a severe problem in profitable over public belief.

Press freedom in Algeria has been additional restricted following a 2023 legislation handed by the nation’s parliament. The measure tightens media possession guidelines and empowers courts to power journalists to disclose their sources.

Home media shops will likely be banned from receiving abroad funding and dual-nationals prevented from proudly owning press or broadcasting corporations.

Some key dates in Algeria’s historical past:

c. 600BC – Carthaginians increase settlements alongside the North African coast.

4th Century BC – Berbers kind the only largest component of the Carthaginian military.

241-238BC – Revolt of the Mercenaries: Berber troopers insurgent after being unpaid following Carthage’s defeat by Rome within the First Punic Conflict.

146BC – Carthage is destroyed by Roman forces below Scipio Africanus.

2nd Century BC – Emergence of the Berber kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania.

24AD – Berber kingdoms turn into a part of the Roman Empire.

429 – Germanic Vandals invade North Africa and arrange kingdom based mostly on Carthage.

477-578 – Rise of the Mauro-Roman kingdom, an unbiased Christian Berber kingdom centred in Altava.

533-34 – Byzantine forces below Belisarius drive out the Vandals as a part of the Emperor Justinian’s reconquest of the Western Roman Empire.

578-708 – Kingdom of Altava is a successor state to the earlier Berber kingdom. It thrives till the conquest of the world by the Umayyad Caliphate within the seventh and eighth centuries.

972-1148 – Zirids: a Berber dynasty from modern-day Algeria guidelines the central Maghreb from 972 to 1014 and the jap Maghreb from 972 to 1148.

1050s-1147 – Almoravids: A Berber Muslim dynasty centered within the territory of present-day Morocco established an eleventh Century empire over the western Maghreb (North Africa) and Al-Andalus (southern Spain) beginning within the 1050s and lasting till its fall to the Almohads in 1147.

1121-1269 – Almohads: A North African Berber Muslim empire that at its peak, controls a lot of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.

1235-1557 – Zayyanids: A Berber dynasty centred in town of Tlemcen in northwest Algeria.

1509 – Spanish conquer Oran.

1512 – Turkish privateer brothers Oruç and Hayreddin – each recognized to up to date Europeans as Barbarossa or “Pink Beard” – function efficiently off Tunisia.

1519 – After a Spanish try and take Algiers, an meeting of Algerian notables asks the Ottoman Sultan Selim to make Algiers a part of the Ottoman Empire. Hayreddin Barbarossa is called Beylerbey of Algiers, or emir of emirs. The province turns into key for the Turks who see it because the spearhead of Ottoman energy within the western Mediterranean.

1681-88 – French-Algerian Conflict: a part of a wider marketing campaign by France towards the Barbary pirates – primarily Muslim pirates and privateers working from North Africa to seize slaves for the Ottoman slave commerce. Along with seizing service provider ships, they raided coastal cities and villages in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal but in addition within the British Isles, Netherlands, and Iceland.

1783-1784 – Following assaults on Spanish service provider delivery, the Spanish navy and allies bombard Algiers, destroying a lot of its fortifications.

1815 – The Second Barbary Conflict: between america and the Barbary Coast states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers.

1816 – Britain and the Netherlands bombard Algiers in a bid to power the native ruler to cease enslaving Europeans. Nonetheless, this doesn’t utterly finish till the French conquest of Algeria.

1830 – French conquest of Algeria. France invades and rapidly takes Algiers and seizes different coastal communities. Extra navy forces have been introduced in over the next years to quell resistance within the inside, and to encourage colonists to settle and farm.

1848 – Algeria turns into a division of France, an integral a part of France itself. It’s a vacation spot for a whole bunch of 1000’s of European colonists. Many Europeans settle in Oran and Algiers, and fashioned a majority of the inhabitants in each cities by the early twentieth Century – a few fifth of the full inhabitants of Algeria.

1939-1945 – The Collapse of France and the Anglo-American occupation of North Africa throughout World Conflict Two encourages hopes for independence.

1945 – Professional-independence demonstrations in Setif. 1000’s of Algerians are killed in suppression of ensuing unrest.

1954-1962 – Algerian Conflict of Independence. A significant armed battle between France and the Algerian Nationwide Liberation Entrance or FLN which sees Algeria profitable its independence from France. It’s a advanced battle characterised by guerrilla warfare and conflict crimes. It additionally turns into a civil conflict between the completely different communities and inside communities. Demise totals range between 400,000 and 1.5 million. As much as one million European colonists depart Algeria.

1962 – Algeria turns into unbiased.

1976 – Algerian, Moroccan armies conflict over Western Sahara.

1989 – New structure removes the one-party state and strikes nation away from socialism to western capitalism.

1991-2002 – Algerian Civil Conflict: With the Islamic Salvation Entrance (FIS)dominating the primary of two rounds of legislative elections in 1991, and fearing the election of an Islamist authorities, the authorities cancel the elections. They ban the FIS, triggering a civil conflict between Algeria’s armed forces and numerous Islamist insurgent teams. Islamist militants conduct a violent marketing campaign of civilian massacres. Greater than 100,000 individuals are thought to have died.

1999 – Abdelaziz Bouteflika turns into president and introduces nationwide reconciliation coverage.

2007 onwards – Islamist insurgency marketing campaign within the Maghreb and Sahel by Al-Qaeda within the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM, an Islamist militant group that goals to overthrow the Algerian authorities and institute an Islamic state.

2019 – President Bouteflika publicizes he’ll step down after road protests, pushed by decade-long financial stagnation, unemployment, labour market segmentation and power corruption.