The Directorate General for National Security ( ar, المديرية العامة للأمن الوطني (also DGNS, Sûreté nationale, or Sûreté) is the national civil police force of Algeria. It polices Algeria's larger cities and urban areas. The Sûreté is part of the Ministry of Interior and is charged with maintaining law and order, protecting life and property, investigating crimes, and apprehending offenders. It also performs other routine police functions, including traffic control.

Organization

The DGNS is headed by a Director General and in 2007 consisted of a force of 130,000, including specialist operational and investigative branches and supporting services. The judicial police branch is responsible for

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

investigations, working in close coordination with the Office of the Public Prosecutor in the Ministry of Justice. Police are assigned to the capitals of the wilayat are under the nominal control of the individual governors. A special riot police force is equipped with modern riot-control gear. Although the police were able to cope with urban disturbances and violence during the early and mid-1980s, the military had to be called in to help quell the severe riots in late 1988.

Internal security

Elements of the DGNS nationale also play a role in countering threats to the government arising from political subversion. The Sûreté assigns police contingents to work with customs inspectors at legal points of entry to control illegal activities. Their main concerns are apprehending undesirable immigrants and contraband traffickers. The Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) is the Algerian state intelligence service. It is separate from Directorate General for National Security and was an active player in the

Algerian Civil War The Algerian Civil War ( ar, rtl=yes, الْحَرْبُ الْأَهْلِيَّةُ الجَزَائِرِيَّةُ, al-Ḥarb al-ʾAhlīyah al-Jazāʾirīyah) was a civil war in Algeria fought between the Algerian government and various Is ...

of the 1990s.Jeanne Kervyn and François Gèze
L’organisation des forces de répression
Comité Justice pour l'Algérie, Dossier n° 16. September 2004.

Weapons

* Glock 17 * Beretta 92 * Caracal pistol * Smith & Wesson M&P * AKM * Beretta M12 * HK MP5

Vehicles

Motorcycles

* BMW K1100RT * BMW R1100RT * BMW K1600GT

= Cars

Special vehicles

BCL M-5 BCL may stand for: Law & Politics * Bachelor of Civil Law, the term used to describe a variety of legal degrees offered by universities in English-speaking countries (as distinct from Canon Law and Common Law) * Bangladesh Chhatra League, the stud ...

* Nimr (armored personnel carrier)

Aerial equipment

* AgustaWestland AW109 * Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil

References

Notes

Law enforcement in Algeria National Central Bureaus of Interpol {{law-enforcement-agency-stub