On October 1, 2021 , the French website Mena Defense for Military Affairs published a report confirming the occurrence of a maritime incident near the territorial waters of Algeria, during which an Algerian submarine chased an Israeli submarine.
The next day, the Algerian Ministry of Defense denied what was published about the alleged chase, in parallel with the opening of naval maneuvers by its navy.
The ministry confirmed that there were no incidents on September 29 and 30, 2021, and that "the information circulated in the media, categorically, is incorrect."
What happened?
According to the Egyptian navy captain to the news site Alisticalal, naval vessels are detected underwater using two types of monitoring.
The first, using "active radars" that emit sound waves, which return when they hit the sides of the vessel underwater and reveal their location to the monitoring center that emitted the signal.
The second is based on a "passive monitoring" system, which uses radars that can pick up the sound waves of enemy underwater radars (sonar waves), or detect noise from marine vessel engines, and locate them.
The Mina Defense website quoted its sources as saying that immediately after the discovery of the Israeli submarine, "the Algerian command decided to follow it passively, without sonar, in order to avoid being detected by the dolphin submarine."
The French website reported that the Algerian forces exposed the Israeli submarine Dolphin through systems for identifying and locating the sound of the Algerian submarine model "Kilo".
He noted that "Algerian Air Force planes played a key role in the operation, using two Super Lynx anti-submarine helicopters, while two Algerian submarines forced the Israeli submarine to flee north.
He explained that the Israeli submarine "Dolphin" had surfaced, an indication that it had abandoned its espionage mission and moved away from the shores of Algeria
Mina Defense quoted its sources as saying that "an Algerian task force numbering two Project 636 submarines and Navy aircraft for the Super Lynx Mk-140 submarine fighter equipped with MU90 torpedo missiles could have sunk the enemy submarine."
The site wondered if the renewed Israeli interest in the Algerian army and its espionage was related to tensions between Algeria and Morocco and Tel Aviv's relationship with Rabat, or were there other motives behind it?
Darko Todorovsky, the military editor of the Russian "Balkan East" website, confirmed the Israeli submarine incident that spied on Algeria and its attempt to "follow training to launch the Club-S" Algerian submarine "cruise missile.
He wrote on Twitter: "The Israeli submarine model Dolphin tried to follow the launch of a submarine cruise missile as part of naval maneuvers, but it was discovered by 2 Algerian submarines and forced to come to the surface and leave the area."