On September 7, the daily Echourouk el-Youmi reported: „The Moroccan government has decided to extend the metal fence which would be built along the border with Algeria to 110 km instead of the 70 km which had been decided during the initial period of the preparation of the project and that has been considered by observers as an escalation and a provocative step.

A Moroccan security source told Anadolu news agency that „the rate of the work completed on the project stood at 38 per cent at the end of August“. The source claimed that „over 41 km of the metal fencing, which is to be built within the framework of the measures announced by the Moroccan government to confront the threat of terrorism and combat the smuggling of people and medical drugs smuggled from Algeria, has been completed“. The source stressed that „work on the metal fencing must end before the end of 2014“. The height of the fence would be about three metres and it would stretch across three provinces; Oujda, Berkane and Jerada.“The metal fencing will included strategic and vital areas along the eastern border with Algeria from Saaidia on the Mediterranean to Sidi Aissa in Jerada Province. The Moroccan source claimed that the aim behind fencing the border strip which would put the border area under 24-hour surveillance throughout the week was to confront what he called „the threat of terrorism“ to Morocco and to combat organized and cross-border crime. In a speech at the parliament’s first chamber, the Moroccan Interior Minister Mohamed Hassad said that Morocco would build a fence along the eastern border with Algeria to prevent terrorists from infiltrating into Morocco. This came in his reply to a question regarding the government’s announcement on the availability of intelligence information on the presence of a serious terrorist threat against the kingdom linked directly with the number of Moroccans who were members of terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq.

„A former officer in the People’s National Army, Ibrahim Hamlat [as transliterated], has stressed that the Moroccan step was nothing but provocation which the regime had been persistently resorting to for decades and which would not develop into a war with Algeria because they were aware that the Algerian army was capable of striking at any point in the kingdom. In an interview with Echourouk, the former Algerian army officer said: „Morocco is lying about being exposed to a threat from the Algerian border and the evidence is in the tonnes of drugs which arrive in Algeria within the framework of a planned scheme by the regime to poison young Algerians and to appear before local and internal public opinion as capable of protecting its border.“…“ – Newspaper – Middle East, Middle East