The People's National Army (PNA) (Arabic: الجيش الوطني الشعبي الجزائري, romanized: al-Jaysh al-Waṭanī al-Shaʿbī al-Jazāʾirī) is the military of the Algerian republic.

[9] The antecedents of the army were the conventional military units formed in neighbouring Morocco and Tunisia during the war of independence from France.

At the end of the war of independence, a split developed between the National Liberation Army and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA).

[10] The GPRA was set up in 1958 to represent the National Liberation Front abroad, mobilise the funds needed to organise the underground movement and support the refugees who had fled to Morocco and Tunisia.

[11] Just three years later, Boumediène deposed Ben Bella in a coup, which also saw the former take power and the National Assembly replaced by the Revolutionary Council to oversee the development of state structures.

After being structured as a politicized "people's army" in the Boumédiène era, and retaining its allegiance to the FLN during the one-party state years of Algerian history, the military forces were formally depoliticized in 1988, as a multi-party system was introduced.

For many officers, the election of an Islamist Algerian government would be a disaster as they believed it would be catastrophic for the economy through capital flight and foreign petrol companies cancelling their agreements to extract oil and gas in Algeria.

The coup and the cancellation of elections triggered the Algerian Civil War in December 1991, a conflict which is believed to have claimed 100-350,000 lives during the 1990s.

The state and army Islamist resistance in the late 1990s, but local and sporadic fighting persists in 2009, along with occasional bomb attacks against government targets in major cities.

Over Boutiflika's 20-year-presidency, the military's influence over politics decreased, as commanders who once held strong political power started to retire, and Boutiflika himself secured more mandate from the people, as his foreign policies rejuvenated Algeria's international status and domestic policies were successful in achieving reconciliation between different sides of the civil war and achieving peace.

Both countries' armed forces have engaged in costly equipment upgrades in recent years, clearly viewing each other as the principal threat to their sovereignty, and equally reluctant to let the other nation gain the upper hand militarily.

By contrast, Algeria's post-independence border disagreements with Tunisia and Libya, which were at times a cause for poor relations, both appear to have been peacefully resolved (to its advantage).

[17] On 19 January 2013, Algerian troops killed 32 militant hostage-takers and freed more than 650 hostages held at the Tigantourine gas facility, situated near in Amenas in the Illizi Province.

The general staff had responsibility for operational planning for the integrated armed forces, budgeting, information and communications, logistics and administrative support, mobilization, and recruiting.

Along with the minister of defence (Nezzar in 1993), Helen Chapin Metz wrote in 1993 that the senior hierarchy of the armed forces included the Chief of Staff of the People's National Army, Abdelmalek Guénaizia; the commander of the National Gendarmerie, Abbas Ghezaiel; the chief of the DRS, Mohamed Médiène; and the inspector general of the land forces, Tayeb Derradji.

[citation needed] Since independence in the 1960s, no foreign bases are known to have been allowed in Algeria, although in the 1970s and 1980s, large numbers of Soviet military advisers were stationed in the country.

The army produces AK-47 and AKM-47 assault rifles, licensed by Russia and China, as well as rocket-type RPGs in the Construction Company Mechanical Khenchela (ECMK).

The Russian company, Rosoboronexport, has expressed a request for financial assistance to several countries including Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to participate in the project for the production of the T-50 (PAK-FA) 5th generation fighter aircraft.

The development of the military industry in Algeria in the 1980s played a crucial role when the Algerian Civil War occurred a decade later.

The indigenously manufactured weapons helped the Algerian military in combating the Islamists around the country, contributing to the government's victory in 2002.

Algeria exports its indigenously manufactured weapons to Tunisia, Mali, Niger, Libya, Mauritania and several other African as well as Arab states in the Middle East.