An additional impetus for the coup may also have been Ben Bella's plan to reorganize the armed forces and reshuffle the military leadership. Since independence, the ALN was the military of Algeria but regional militias also existed. Ben Bella drafted plans to expand the people's militias while simultaneously reducing the role of the military.[4] Ben Bella had also forced the resignation of two allies of Boumédiène,the interior minister, Ahmed Medeghri, and the minister for foreign affairs, Abdelaziz Bouteflika (who later became President of Algeria in 1999).