It was only a few years ago that the death of Algerian Foreign Minister Mohammed Seddiq Benyahia, whose plane was downed in a Kurdish area between Iraq, Iran and Turkey 36 years ago, was brought up.
It was revealed that it was a premeditated incident and that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was behind it. The source of this information was Salah Goudjil, the former Algerian Minister of Transportation, and more importantly the man who headed the Algerian commission investigating Benyahia’s death.
The biggest shock however was when Khaled Nezzar, the former Minister of Defense and the army’s strongman for a long period of time, confirmed this information a few days ago.
It’s been three decades and a half since the incident took place and many relevant parties are no longer in the scene as they have passed away; therefore, there is no reason to doubt the new story.
Retired general Nezzar does not only implicate Saddam but also accuses then-Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid of ordering everyone to keep silent and conceal the dangerous information that implicates the Iraqi authorities.
The military did not like Bendjedid for believing he was responsible for failure and chaos. He was forced out of office in the beginning of the 1990s when he permitted extremist Islamists to become politically active, and which was accompanied with the rise of jihadists like Belhadj.
Benyahia’s plane was transporting 14 other people who also died after the jet was targeted shortly after crossing the Iraqi border. According to the head of the Algerian investigation commission, investigators found the remains of the missile, which blew up the plane, in the debris.
The missile is manufactured by Russia and its serial number was tracked to Iraqi military purchases. There was enough available information to state that someone in Iraq had launched the missile and downed the plane.
Of course there is the hypothesis that there was no foul play and that the missile was fired mistakenly. However, Saddam’s discourtesy did not give the Algerians the chance to ask questions and investigate. When Saddam visited Algeria shortly after the incident, the authorities did not dare open the subject with him under the excuse that he was a guest in their country.
Then the transportation minister was dispatched to Baghdad. But he too did not dare bring up the subject with Saddam. He only handed him the file of the investigation into the case, which indicated that Iraq was accused of killing the minister. All what Saddam told the minister was: “You have to improve relations with Iraq.” As if he was threatening by saying: “Yes, I killed him!”
The important question is why would Saddam kill the envoy after accepting his mediation to end the war between Iraq and Iran in 1982? At the time, it was less than two years into the eight-year war. He suspiciously looked at Algeria. It was Algeria that accomplished the border dispute agreement with the Shah’s government in the 1970s, the agreement which Saddam ripped apart when he turned against Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and declared war on Iran after the Shah was overthrown and Khomeini assumed power.
Saddam saw that Algeria was the only mediator that succeeded in convincing the Iranians to release the American embassy hostages. Despite that, Saddam could have just rejected his mediation rather than killing Benyahia. However, those who know the former Iraqi president are aware that he sends messages to his rivals through murder.
Saddam was famous for his passion for violence. He had killed hundreds of his friends, relatives, fellow tribal members and others from his home town of Tikrit, and thousands of others. He had killed his cousin and defense Minister Adnan Khairallah in a plane crash, his sons-in-law, and Baghdad’s governor few months after honoring him with the Order of the Two Rivers. He had also killed many of his ministers and comrades from the party’s leadership on various charges. He was a terrifying figure to governments and individuals.
However, things did not go as planned by Saddam. Few months after Benyahia’s plane was downed, the former Iraqi leader began losing battles with the Iranians who managed to restore areas they had lost, and entered South Iraq.
Back then, Saddam reiterated his call to end the war, urged mediations and announced keenness for a reconciliation and for going back to the Algerian agreement which he had torn apart. The war, however, lasted for another six years after Benyahia’s murder.
