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Western Sahara Separatists Clash with Mauritania Miners

HASSAN MASIKY
03/22/13

 

Washington  /  Morocco News  Board --   A recent incursion of Polisario fighters into Mauritanian territory adds to the current unrest and provides a catalyst for further violence in the Sahel-Sahara region. Armed elements of the Algeria’s based Western Sahara Separatist group Polisario Front have prevented the Mauritanian mining company “Trading International Mauritania ‘” from conducting excavations in an area 40 miles north of the Mauritanian city of Zouerate, the well-informed Mauritanian News Agency ALAKHBAR reported. 
Citing Police sources, the Nouakchott based website confirmed that Polisario fighters insisted that the area in question belongs to the self-declared Sahara Republic and therefore Mauritanians have no mining rights in the region. Zouerate is a major Mauritanian hub for iron and other precious minerals and a significant source of revenue for the cash-strapped North African nation.
In chasing Mauritanian mine workers from a zone that is internationally recognized as Mauritanian territory, the Polisario Front illustrates how a new “Saharawi entity” will develop into a destabilizing factor in an already volatile region.  This incident coincides with a rapprochement between Mauritania and Algeria’s rival Morocco. 
The Algeria based Polisario has a history of bullying Mauritanian authorities. With strong ethnic and historical links between Sahrawi tribes from the Moroccan and Mauritanian Sahara, several of the Polisario fighters who joined the Algeria sponsored separatist movement are in fact originally Mauritanian and tend to harass the vulnerable Mauritanian forces for what the Polisario perceives as Nouakchott pro-Moroccan positions.  
This incident is significant given the ongoing combats in Northern Mali between French troops and Islamist militants. Mauritania is a fragile nation susceptible to regional events especially in Morocco, Algerian and Mali. The Polisario leadership, aware of Mauritanian preoccupations with the conflict in Mali, realizes that Nouakchott is in no position to defend its long borders with the no-man land in the Weston Sahara.
Hostilities on a new front in the Sahara will be detrimental to the American and European efforts to root out terrorism in the Sahel. Polisario aggressive postures toward Mauritanian and its “sprawling territorial aspirations” should be a source of concerns   for the world community.
Mauritania, which suffered in the past from attacks perpetrated by terror groups associated with The Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, will collapse if confronted with a major security crisis. In fact, Nouakchott stayed out of the fighting in Mali to avoid a spillover of hostilities to its territory. An uptake of the Algerian controlled Polisario provocations in Mauritania will exasperate the delicate security situation in Mauritania and will threaten the European mission in Mali.
 

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Comments (3)  

 
Morcelli
+1 #1 RE: Western Sahara Separatists Clash with Mauritania Miners — Morcelli 2013-03-22 13:13
Mauritanians are too smart to get dragged into the Sahara conflict. Even when Algeria accused Morocco of mounting the assassination of the Mauritanian president, Mauritanian authorities swiftly denied it. They might be poor but they are certainly not dumb.

I would suggest that you take with a grain of salt anything coming out of some Mauritanian News Agency. What is this Aljazeera?

If you want to help Morocco, I would suggest that you ask for the firing of the Moroccan UN ambassador who embarrass himself on CNN. I am sure you can do better job than him. That's how you help your country not by relying on some famine stricken Mauritanian news media.


I know that I sometimes sound as if I am on the side of the butchers of north Africa, I am not, I just want people writing to be careful when they write, we are not in Morocco here, who are you trying to convince here? Frankly this is an insult to those who are following these events unfold in North Africa.

You are smarted than that and I sure you can do a lot better.

We know that the Sahel is a bomb waiting to explode, we know that Algeria is such mess trying to be the sole power in half Africa, we know that the polisario are nothing but a bunch thuggish group working for the DRS, you do not need to make your point by relying on some Mauritanian news agency. Even it's true, I can assure you that Mauritanian will not get involved, you know why> because Mauritania is in better place now, they get brown nosed by Morocco and Algeria.

Both Morocco and Algeria are pampering the President of Mauritania who came to power with a coup d'etat against the first democratically Arab leader.
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Morocco101
0 #2 @Morc elli — Morocco101 2013-03-22 14:12
If Mauritanian news is reporting this, thne it must be true b/c in general their news reporting is pro-Polisario.

We should follow every story on Polisario no matter how small it is. I like that Hassan tries to pick an event floated by DZ and respond.

There is no bad press only press coverage.
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Morcelli
+2 #3 RE: Western Sahara Separatists Clash with Mauritania Miners — Morcelli 2013-03-22 15:08
My point is not if the news is valid or not, my point is that little skirmishes here and there between the Polisario and others does not necessary benefit Morocco as the author is trying to imply.

I have said it over and over again, there is no one in MB who is more informed on the subject than Mr. Hassan. Disagreeing with his articles is a rather healthy for the conversation to continue and I am sure that he agrees with me.

I also know that he has his reasons to never criticize the Palace but always harsh on the diplomats.

My question is: who places the diplomats?
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