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Western Sahara: Morocco's Forgotten War Israel today

2020-12-11T08:06:44.934Z


| the Middle East Decades of fighting, a stubborn national minority and a huge wall that stretches across an almost empty desert • Get to know the conflict that has escalated into an agreement between Israel and Morocco Sahrawis demonstrate in front of Moroccan army stronghold // Photo: AFP The ongoing conflict in the Western Sahara region became today (Thursday) part of an agreement being formed between Israel,


Decades of fighting, a stubborn national minority and a huge wall that stretches across an almost empty desert • Get to know the conflict that has escalated into an agreement between Israel and Morocco

  • Sahrawis demonstrate in front of Moroccan army stronghold // Photo: AFP

The ongoing conflict in the Western Sahara region became today (Thursday) part of an agreement being formed between Israel, the United States and Morocco.

Under the agreement, the United States will recognize Morocco's sovereignty over the desert region and in return, Morocco will strengthen its relations with Israel and establish full diplomatic relations with it. 

US President Donald Trump addressed the issue in a tweet exposing the diplomatic move, saying: "Today I signed a document recognizing Moroccan sovereignty in Western Sahara. Morocco's proposal for autonomy for the people of the region is serious, realistic and credible and the only one that can lead to peace in the region."

But what is actually going on in the vast region of the country, who is fighting whom and is it possible that Trump's policy will bring a remedy to the bloody West?

The conflict in Western Sahara began in 1970, when a group of rebels known as Polisaro launched an armed revolt against the Moroccan authorities, who had taken control of the country from Spain, which had ruled it since the 19th century, that year.

The Polisaro is the main underground organization of the Sahrawi minority, an ethnic group whose members are scattered between Algeria, Mauritania and Morocco, and are supported by the regimes in Libya and Algeria.

The conflict, which began as a series of clashes and acts of sabotage, escalated into a full-scale war in 1975, a war that lasted continuously until 1991.

Although the Polisaro forces never numbered more than a few thousand, a combination of guerrilla warfare, support from outside and from the local population and the vast territory that the Moroccan army had to hold on to, the Moroccan army found it difficult to suppress the uprising.

Nearly 80,000 Sahrawis became refugees and more than 20,000 people were killed in the fighting.

The war officially ended with a UN-mediated ceasefire agreement in 1991. The Moroccan army controlled most of the territory and the main cities in the country, while the rebels remained in a desert and almost uninhabited area of ​​territory in the east of the country. In 1999, a widespread popular uprising broke out. But also acts of terrorism and murder dubbed “the first Sahrawi intifada.” A similar uprising occurred again in 2005. Both uprisings were suppressed and with the exception of a wave of demonstrations that coincided with the events of the Arab Spring of 2011, the populated center of Western Sahara remained relatively calm.

In an effort to prevent terrorist acts and raids by Polisaro people, Morocco has built a huge series of dirt barriers and concrete walls in the heart of the Western Sahara desert, a wall that connects Moroccan army outposts and prevents the movement of nomads and rebels alike.

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2020-12-11

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