US asked for Egypt’s spy help on Algerian nuclear reactor

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By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A US consular document, acquired by a leading Algerian newspaper, reveals that Washington asked Egypt’s help in collecting intelligence on the Algerian nuclear energy program. The document, which dates from May 1991, was drafted by officials in the US embassy in Cairo, Egypt; it is not known how it came to the possession of Algerian daily Ennahar, which published it on Tuesday. It contains a summary of a May 1991 meeting in Cairo between Richard Clarke, who was then the US Department of State’s deputy secretary for political and military affairs, and a senior Egyptian official whose name is in redacted in the document, but appears to have been Amr Moussa, Egypt’s minister of foreign affairs at the time. The document, which is classified ‘top secret’, reports that the US delegation asked the Egyptians to help them gather information on Algeria’s Es Salam nuclear reactor, located in the city of Ain Oussera, in the province of Djelfa, in north-central Algeria. Es Salam is one of Algerian two operational nuclear reactors; it was constructed mainly with Chinese technical assistance, and became operational in 1993. At the time of Clarke’s meeting with Moussa, the reactor would have been in the construction stage. According to the US embassy memo, Moussa told the US official that Egypt understood Washington’s concerns about the Algerian nuclear program, and promised to consider the request for intelligence assistance. A photograph of the cover page of the document is available here.