Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité

Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) (إدارة الاستخبارات والأمن) (Department of Intelligence and Security) is the Algerian state intelligence service. Its existence dates back to the struggle for independence.

Formation
The DRS was formed during the Algerian War for independence, under the direction by Abdelhafid Boussouf, whose role was to lead both the national and international networks of the Front de libération nationale (FLN). After independence in 1962, and particularly with the accession of Houari Boumédiène to the leadership of the country in 1965, the Algerian intelligence services greatly professionalised and institutionalised.

Organization
This change of internal organization was modeled to a large extent on the intelligence and internal security services of the then Eastern bloc Nations. Renamed Sécurité Militaire (SM) its directives were:
 * Counter-espionage
 * Internal security
 * Foreign intelligence

The first appointed Chairman of Military Security was the colonel Kasdi Merbah who stayed until the death of president Boumédiène in 1978. Then he was succeeded for a short time by colonel Yazid Zerhouni. President Chadli Bendjedid, who mistrusted the SM, dismantled it and renamed it the DGPS. Chadli appointed to the chair of the DGPS general Lakehal Ayat, reorganising the agency to work solely in foreign intelligence.

The events of October 1988 caused president Chadli Bendjedid to dismiss General Ayat, who was succeeded by General Betchine. His tenure saw major political change, beginning with the advent of a multi-party political system and the rise of the Islamist movement of the FIS. It was in this period that the DGPS reasserted its role in internal security, becoming an active player in the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s.

The Services changed its name once again, from DGPS to DRS, with the appointment of its current head in November 1990, General Mohamed Mediène. Outside observers have charged that Mediène was one of the junta of generals who forced the cancellation the 1991 elections which the Islamists were set to win, plunging the nation into civil war, and greatly increasing the power of the military—and the DRS—in Algeria's government.

GIS (Groupe d'Intervention Spécial) is a special force (300 members) under the direction of the DRS.

Chairmen of the DRS

 * Abdelhafid Boussouf from 1954 à 1958
 * Houari Boumédiène from 1958 to 1965
 * Kasdi Merbah from 1965 to 1978
 * Yazid Zerhouni from 1979-1981
 * Lakehal Ayat from 1981 to 1988
 * Mohamed Betchine from 1988 to 1990
 * Mohamed Mediène from 1990 until today

Allegations of torture
Amnesty International has repeatedly claimed that the DRS engages in unlawful arrest, detention and torture. "'officials of the Departement du Renseignement et de la Securite (DRS), Department of Information and Security, also known as Military Security, continue to torture uncharged detainees held in their custody. ...The DRS runs its own detention centres where detainees are held incommunicado and subject to torture. ...DRS officials continue to be allowed to commit torture with impunity. Algeria's civil authorities, in practice, have no control over their activities and judicial authorities routinely fail to investigate allegations of abuse by the DRS or to inspect their detention prisons, although they are legally required to do so.'"

Infiltration of terrorist groups
Mali's head of state security alleges that "at the heart of AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) is the DRS." John R. Schindler of the U.S. Naval War College has described the DRS's infiltration of terrorist groups as "sinister," alleging that terrorist operations were directly controlled by DRS agents. The DRS was also purportedly involved in the creation of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, which Schindler claims has a leadership thoroughly infiltrated by DRS agents.