Polisario Front Linked To Al Qaeda

The Polisario Front is fighting for Independance for Western Sahara, A region South of Morocco on Africa's west coast. They appear to have created significant connections to AQIM, al Qaedas Organization in the Sahel.

This suggests the likelyhood that a deal has been struck between them, so that when Western Sahara becomes a separate nation, It will become an Islamic State, following the lead of The Islamic Emerite of Somalia, The Islamic Emerite of Yemen, The Islamic Emerite of the Caucuses, etc.

Formal terror training camps will follow, as the "dream caliphate" Islamist multi-nation continues to be formed out of little ppockes of countries controlled by Al Aqeda and funded by Ikhwan business networks.

Shimron Issachar

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Zakia Abdennel

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco said it had arrested a member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) among 26 others who planned to attack security services and rob banks using weapons they hid in an area of the disputed Western Sahara.

Quoting an interior ministry statement, official media said Moroccan security forces recently broke up the 27-member cell and had discovered weapon caches in Amghala, an oasis located in the disputed Western Sahara.

"Moroccan security services have succeeded in dismantling a terrorist cell of 27 members, among whom is a member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb who was tasked by this organisation to set up a rear base in Morocco where it would plan terrorist acts," it said.

The ministry did not say when or where they were arrested.

"Members of the cell, supervised by a Moroccan citizen who is in the Al Qaeda camps in northern Mali, have been planning terrorist acts using explosive belts and car bombs that mainly target security services and to rob banks to fund their terrorist projects," it added.

The cell members also planned to send recruits "to AQIM camps in Algeria and Mali to undergo paramilitary training before returning to Morocco to execute their destructive plans using the weapons discovered near Amghala," it added.

Mohamed Darif, an expert on Islamic militancy in Morocco, said the latest arrest is the first to suggest the existence of links between AQIM and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front which seeks independence in the Western Sahara.

"It is only a matter of time before Moroccan authorities officially announce the existence of links between this cell and the Polisario Front. This would give credence to the Moroccan thesis on the existence of links between AQIM and the Polisario," Darif said

The Polisario has been battling for independence for the Western Sahara for 35 years.
Since the rise of AQIM over the last few years, the Moroccan government has said that giving territory to the Polisario in the Western Sahara could make it a haven for Islamist militancy.
Algeria, Polisario's main supporter, is itself battling AQIM militants, some of whom are the inheritors of a movement which led to a bloody civil war from 1991 to 2002.

Violence linked to militancy is rare in Morocco, a staunch Western ally with a reputation for stability that has helped to entice millions of tourists to visit the country.

The last big attack was a series of suicide bombings in the economic capital, Casablanca, in 2003 that killed 45 people.

Since then security services say they have rounded up more than 60 radical cells.

The Rest @ Reuters.com

AQIM and Polisario, How Smuggling works in the Sahel

September 7, 2010 ------ Al Qaeda is using cash, and coercion, to increase its power in the area south of Algeria. This can be seen in how al Qaeda arranged the release of one of their members (Omar Ahmed Ould Sidi Ould Hama) from a Mauritanian prison last month.

This was apparently part of a secret deal to get two Spanish aid workers released by al Qaeda. Hama was aided by the intercession of UN recognized rebel group Polisario, and officials in Mali (where Hama was expelled to) who looked the other way as Hama promptly disappeared.

Malian officials and Polisario have both been seduced by al Qaeda cash.

• Hama had been convicted of masterminding the kidnapping of three Spanish aid workers in late 2009, and sentenced to life. Now he is free again.
• Polisario is an armed rebel group that could prove very useful to al Qaeda.
• Back in 1991, Morocco finally won the war against Polisario Front rebels, who were seeking independence for the Western Sahara (a region south of Morocco).
• Polisario is powerful in Mauritania, where the rebel group has official recognition and maintains several refugee camps. Because Polisario was so well-subsidized by Algeria, back when Algeria was a radical state, Polisario still has enough diehards out there to keep lots of people in Western Sahara unhappy.
• This provides a potential resource for al Qaeda and other Islamic radicals. For two decades, the UN has been trying and work out a final peace deal between Polasario and Morocco.

In the 1990s, Algeria cut off all support for Polasario. But that, and UN efforts to mediate the differences, have just not worked.The contested area is largely desert, and has a population of less than 300,000.

Logic would have it that the area is better off as a part of Morocco. But there are still thousands of locals who would rather fight for independence, than submit to Morocco. Some resistance of this is tribal, with the Moroccans seen as another bunch of alien invaders (the area was administered, until 1976, as a Spanish colony).

If the fighting breaks out again, possibly inspired by Islamic radicals, it could go on for years, just as it does in many other parts of Africa, and the immediate neighborhood.

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Al Qaeda has established a lucrative cocaine smuggling operation in West Africa. As a result, the Islamic militants are believed to be building fortified bunkers in the mountains along the Mali border.

• They are doing this in cooperation with local tribal groups, who provide cover.
• Local security forces on both sides of the border are always out hunting for Islamic terrorists, so no one down there openly identifies themselves as such. But an increasing number of known Islamic terrorists from the north have been killed, captured or spotted in the south, and especially along the Mali border.
• The Islamic radicals are armed, and have turned to kidnapping foreigners and drug smuggling to pay for supplies, bribes and gifts for their new tribal buddies.
• Foreigners have been warned to stay out of the area, but there are always a small number of them too dumb, or adventurous, to stay away.

The Islamic terrorists are believed to be helping move 50-100 tons of cocaine (and other drugs) a year, north to Mediterranean ports.

Some of the smuggling fees are shared with local tribesmen, who have long engaged in some smuggling on the side. But the drugs are very valuable cargoes, and the Islamic radicals had the international connections (all up and down the coast of West Africa, as well as in South America) to put this deal together.

The local tribes are suitably impressed. So are Western counter-terror forces.

The relations with the local tribes, especially the powerful Tuareg, are complicated. The Tuareg are not fond of Islamic terrorism, but young Tuareg are allowed to work with al Qaeda as hired guns.

• The pay is good, and, so far, not too dangerous. But the young Tuareg are picking up some radical ideas from their al Qaeda bosses, and that is causing some tension with tribal leaders.
• The drug smuggling is actually handled by Arab gangsters that are not terrorists.
• Al Qaeda gets paid lots of money to provide security for the drugs as they make the long run through the Sahara.
• The Tuareg provide local knowledge of the terrain, and people, at least in the far south.

Meanwhile, along the border, Islamic radicals openly talk (on their web sites) of planning to overthrow the governments of Algeria, Mauritania and Mali.

Given the sorry track record against Algeria, Islamic terrorism in Algeria's neighbors is seen more of a nuisance than real threat.

In the more populated northern Algeria, the Islamic terrorists are able to launch one or two operations a month, and spend most of their time dodging army and police efforts to find the terrorist bases (mostly in rural areas.)

The Rest @ The Morrocco Board

Mouritania Frontier Crime May be al Qaeda

This 31 December 2007 article suggests that al Qaeda or Trans-national criminal trafficers may be building infrastructure or ramping up for Action in West Africa

-Shimron

Mauritania forces unsure of al Qaeda attack claim
Mon 31 Dec 2007, 15:42 GMT
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By Ibrahima Sylla

NOUAKCHOTT, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Mauritanian forces hunting the killers of French tourists and government soldiers are not convinced by a claim that al Qaeda launched one of the attacks, security sources said on Monday.

Last week's separate attacks have shaken the normally peaceful West African country as it prepares to host a section of the Dakar Rally -- a race that gives a lucrative boost to Mauritania's nascent tourism industry.

A promise of 3,000 security personnel to ensure safe passage was enough for the rally's security chief, who has given the green light to its Mauritanian stages starting Jan 11.
But with talk of French tourists cancelling trips, Mauritanians are aware there is still time for a change of plan, should a serious al Qaeda threat be established.

Stages in neighbouring Mali were cancelled last year after French security services cited a threat from Algerian rebels.

• Last Monday three attackers, who authorities suspect are linked to al Qaeda, gunned down four French tourists and injured a fifth as they enjoyed a Christmas Eve picnic by the side of a road in the south of the country, near the border with Senegal.
• Gunmen killed three army soldiers three days later in the remote and sparsely populated north of the country, bordering Algeria and Morocco's breakaway territory of Western Sahara.
• In an audio recording aired by Al Arabiya television, a spokesman said al Qaeda's North African branch had killed four soldiers late on Wednesday, but made no mention of the French.
• Details in the statement differed from those given by the Mauritanian authorities, and the Gulf TV station said it could not verify the statement was indeed from al Qaeda.
• Security sources in Mauritania's capital Nouakchott said the al Qaeda link was just one of the lines of inquiry

Suspicion was also falling on armed smugglers who traffic drugs, weapons and people across poorly policed borders deep in the Sahara.

• The soldiers were shot dead by the occupants of two vehicles they were pursuing, who then made off with a heavy gun captured from the soldiers' vehicle.
• The rough terrain would require heavy-duty vehicles similar to those designed for military use, said one security source.
• "The heavy weapon they took, which they dismantled, could only be used by a specialist or somebody who had been trained for it," said another security source in Nouakchott.
• Security forces have detained at least seven people in relation to the killing of the French, but the three killers are still at large, possibly in neighbouring Senegal or Mali.

Mauritanian investigators say they are questioning the operator of a pirogue, or small wooden boat, who they believe ferried the attackers across the Senegal river into Senegal.
"The search goes on. So far there is no news. We have not located them -- otherwise we would have arrested them already," said Daouda Diop, spokesman for Senegal's Gendarmerie service.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

UN Appoints First Chinese Commander in Africa

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations announced Monday the appointment of its first Chinese force commander for a U.N. peacekeeping mission. He will serve in the disputed Western Sahara territory.

Maj. Gen. Zhao Jingmin will be force commander for what is termed the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, known by its French acronym MINURSO. He replaces Danish Gen. Kurt Mosgaard, who ended his tour of duty Monday.

"This will be the first time that the U.N. has had a Chinese force commander heading one of its missions," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas told a regular news briefing.

Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony on the northwest African coast. Morocco annexed the territory after Madrid pulled out in 1975 but clashed with Polisario Front guerrillas seeking independence. A cease-fire was declared in 1991.

Since then, just over 200 U.N. troops and military observers have been stationed in Sahara, where a 1,500-km (940-mile) wall of sand running through landmine-infested desert to the Atlantic divides Moroccan and Polisario forces.

Zhao, a career army officer, was born in 1954 and speaks French and English after being educated in both Beijing and Dakar, Senegal. He served briefly in MINURSO after it was first set up.

He was also chief liaison officer in the U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission from 1996-97, and from 1998-2001 was Chinese military attache in Tunisia. Since 2003 he has worked in the Chinese defense ministry's office of peacekeeping affairs.

The United Nations is currently mediating talks between Morocco, which has offered self-rule for the resource-rich Western Sahara, and Polisario, which seeks a referendum with full independence for the 260,000 inhabitants as one option.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa