Mohamed Mediene

General Mohamed Mediène , also known as Toufik (توفيق) is an Algerian intelligence officer who formerly served as head of the country's secret services, the Department of Intelligence and Security (Département du renseignement et de la sécurité, DRS), from 1990 to 2015. He was described as the world's longest serving "intelligence chief".

He was born in 1936 to a Kabyle family from Guenzet (Sétif Province), but grew up near Algiers at Saint-Eugene (Bologhine). He joined the National Liberation Army in 1961, a few months before the Évian Accords. He was an enlisted officer in the ALN.

Career Post-independence Shortly after independence, he joined other ALN military members in studying at a KGB school in the Soviet Union. He was then posted to the 2nd military region (around Oran), then commanded by future President Chadli Bendjedid, where he established ties with Larbi Belkheir. In 1983, he was posted to Tripoli as military attaché. Soon after returning, he became head of presidential security for Bendjedid.

He later became head of army security in the Sécurité Militaire, led at the time by Mohamed Betchine. After Betchine's departure in 1987, Mediene was appointed general and a temporary chief of the intelligence organization. Little is known for certain about le pouvoir, but Mediene has frequently been mentioned as a leading décideur. Preceding this, Ahmed Gaid Salah, the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Deputy Minister of Defense, accused the DRS of complacency in failing to prevent the In Amenas hostage crisis. And in September 2013, the DRS was reorganised to bring more of it under state control. In February 2014, the secretary general of Bouteflika's party, the FLN, accused the DRS of infiltrating and destabilizing several political parties.

Through the DRS' networks, Mediène was believed to hold significant power in Algeria's media, business lobbies, army, and different political parties. A popular rumor in Algeria that cannot be verified has it that Mediène "always receives people in his office with his back turned - if you see his face, this is the last time you see someone in your life." Regardless if this rumor is true or not, the popularity of this rumor says much about Mediène's reputation in Algeria, a man widely viewed as the "Darth Vader" of Algerian politics. Mediène's dismissal was viewed as the culmination of a long "behind-the-scenes power struggle" with Bouteflika, leaving the latter fully in charge and giving him more power to determine his own successor.