The country of Algeria has a history of developing weapons of mass destruction.
In 1991, the United States government exposed the covert construction of a nuclear reactor in Algeria, and the Washington Post accused the country of developing nuclear weapons with the help of the Chinese government. The Algerian government admitted it was building a reactor, but denied any secrecy or military purpose. Under international pressure, Algeria placed the reactor under IAEA safeguards, and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in January 1995. The transparency of its nuclear research programs has been limited to the minimum treaty requirements, which has caused suspicions to persist.
Before, and a couple of years after Algeria's independence, France used bases in the Algerian part of the Sahara (Reggane and In Ekker) to do their nuclear testing.
References
- Ref. Albright, David; and Corey Hinderstein (May/June 2001). "Algeria: Big deal in the desert?". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 57 (03): 45–52. http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/t554r07076046724/?p=7fe5a1eb81494649b54eed80d7a914cc&pi=13.
- http://www.atomicarchive.com/Almanac/Testing.shtml
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