Iran counts on the Polisario Front in its global terrorist network against Israel and Morocco
Several months ago many alarms were raised when the news broke that Iran had provided drones to the Polisario Front to be used against Morocco, a country that has notably increased its relations with Israel in all sectors. In this strategy of extending its influence in the region with terrorist methods of destabilization, the regime of the ayatollahs uses with remarkable results the Al Quds brigades, the international branch of the Revolutionary Guards which have been active for years in Gaza with Hamas, and in some areas of the West Bank, in Lebanon with Hezbollah, in Yemen with the Houthis and in Syria and other places supporting certain militias and with bases and training camps.
One of the training camps in Syria has trained numerous Hamas members who on October 7 participated in the terrorist attack against Israel, using methods and exhibitionism of barbarism as the Daesh terrorists did.
The latest attacks carried out just over a week ago by the Polisario Front against the town of Smara in the Moroccan Sahara, claimed in a somewhat ambiguous statement, have heightened concern that the global terror strategy against Israel also includes Morocco using, arming and indoctrinating members of the Polisario Front.
As Christine Kensche, Middle East correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt, writes in her article, the threat and attacks against Israel are not only coming from its neighbors, but from other countries: "WELT has received information from the intelligence services that shows a trail to the Sahara. A militia is forming there against Israel and its leaders are discussing lurid plans over the phone."
Threats and fantasies of annihilation of the Jewish state are apparently being discussed and harangued among members of various groups that have been enemies of Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
Iran's direct relationship with Hamas, with Hezbollah which has been launching rockets from Lebanon against Israel for days and trying to infiltrate terrorists, with the Houthis in Yemen who have declared war on Israel and have also launched some long range missiles and drones which were intercepted by an American ship, and with militias in Syria who have shown their intention to intervene, is well known.
In his recent tour of the region, the U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, included a visit to Iraq to warn the government that they will not tolerate any more attacks against their military bases and that the response will be very forceful. A situation that is also registered in Syria.
Iranian strategy in the Sahara
Christine Kensche's article in Die Welt recalls that in Algeria, the parliament has voted unanimously to support the war against Israel following the intransigent policy of the Algerian National Liberation Front and of the military leadership in power, which is pigeonholed in its visceral and self-interested rejection of Israel and therefore of countries which have increased the number of attacks against Israel, Therefore, to countries that have increased relations with the Jewish state as is the case of Morocco, with whom it broke off relations almost two years ago and turns a deaf ear to the constant calls for reconciliation of King Mohamed VI.
"Iran is behind all these activities. The Shiite regime has woven a worldwide network of militias, which it supports with weapons, money and training and in return uses for its strategy of terror against the West as a whole and against the United States and Israel in particular. As the reports of Western intelligence services and financial investigators, which WELT was able to consult exclusively, show, Tehran has been expanding its network for several years. Iran no longer supports only Shiite and Sunni organizations, but even those that have no points of contact with Israel and fundamentalist Islam."
Kensche writes that the road leads to the Sahara and that a good example of Tehran's approach is the Polisario Front, a socialist militia based in the so-called Tindouf refugee camps in southern Algeria.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front broke the 1991 truce with Morocco using a provocation by cutting the road linking the Sahara to Mauritania, at Guerguerat, which the Moroccan army dismantled after 14 days of blockade and serious losses to hundreds of carriers.
The Polisario Front intended with the resumption of hostilities to confront the remarkable diplomatic successes of Morocco, which has obtained for many relevant countries such as the United States, Germany, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and many others in Africa. Washington's recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara included the establishment of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel, formalizing a situation of fluid exchanges for many years due to the transcendent influence of Moroccan Jews.
Two years earlier, Morocco broke off relations with Iran, as denounced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, for the support Hezbollah gave to the Polisario Front with the supply of arms and training in urban guerrilla warfare,
The article published in the newspapaer Die Welt points out that "Tehran had supplied surface-to-air missiles and drones to Polisario members in Western Sahara. Iranian ally Hezbollah had set up camps in Algeria where it trained Polisario fighters.
Although Polisario Front and Hezbollah leaders denied the allegations, Morocco claimed to have an extensive archive of detailed reports and satellite images of meetings between Hezbollah and Polisario representatives in Algeria. Morocco claimed that Iran also helped organize meetings between the Polisario Front and Hezbollah through its embassy in Algeria. A Polisario Front representative claimed last year that Iran, through Algerian mediation, was supplying them with "kamikaze" drones for use against Morocco.
New intelligence reports, which WELT has now been able to see, corroborate Morocco's accusations. For example, this newspaper has had access to recordings and transcripts of telephone conversations between Polisario representatives and an agent posing as a Hezbollah contact from Côte d'Ivoire. Mustafa Muhammad Lemine Al-Kitab is therefore the Polisario liaison officer in Syria and responsible for the Middle East".
Christine Kensche's information continues "In a conversation recorded on October 23, about two weeks after the attack against Israel in which Hamas massacred 1,400 people, the agent asked Lemine Al-Kitab about the situation. The Polisario man replied, "Praise be to Allah. The boys are encouraged by the victory of the resistance and the actions against the Jews and the victory over them everywhere." He continued, "I see that the resistance is igniting everywhere. It has ignited in Gaza, it may explode in the Golan (...) and in the south (of Lebanon, ed.) and in the Shebaa Farms, and it will also explode in Western Sahara and there will be a united resistance. Everyone will fire from a different place (at Israel, ed. note).
Later in the conversation, the alleged Hezbollah representative and the Polisario envoy discuss possible joint attacks against Israel together with Hamas, Hezbollah, Algeria and Iran.
Lemine Al-Kitab offers to support the Polisario Front, but stresses that its resources are not yet sufficient to attack the Israeli embassy in Morocco, for example. In other talks, he calls for even more support for Hezbollah and Iran."
Earlier this year, WELT uncovered a hawala network operating from Spain and the Tindouf camps (Algeria) and maintaining close contacts with the Polisario, Iran, Lebanon and Hezbollah. Hawala is an ancient method of transferring money without resorting to legal banks.
For example, someone deposits X amount in a "hawaladar" in Beirut. The latter informs his liaison officer in Algeria, who pays the amount to the recipient there without the money having moved. Cash from "hawaladars" in Europe, Africa and the Middle East is balanced against each other, or balanced by smuggling cash, jewelry or expensive watches if necessary. Iran disguises its financial aid to Hezbollah, Hamas and presumably also the Polisario Front with the help of hawala networks whose cash flows are almost impossible to control.
The Abraham Accords
The article ends, "With the help of its proxies, Iran has repeatedly attacked Arab states that are "too Western" in the eyes of the fundamentalists and move closer to Israel. The socialist militia fighting Morocco has become even more useful to Tehran since Morocco signed the Abraham Accords with Israel. In return, the US recognized Morocco's claim to Western Sahara. The North African state has thus become the focus of Iranian attempts to destabilize the region.
And it seems that the Polisario is arming itself in its fight against Morocco: Two weeks ago, rockets were fired at residential areas in the town of Smara in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. One man was killed and three others were wounded, according to Moroccan authorities.
Hamas also started "small" with short-range rockets aimed at southern Israel. Now its projectiles reach the heart of Israel. And its terror squads have managed to outwit the Israeli secret services. Mustafa Muhammad Lemine Al-Kitab, Polisario's Middle East envoy, has already internalized Hamas' motto: "This war is a war of jihad and resistance against the occupation and against the Zionist project," he says in the recording of the Oct. 23 telephone conversation. And: "Resistance has a price in the form of losses. We know that this freedom will have a high price, we will make sacrifices and martyrs, but in the end we will win."