Polisario provokes Morocco with sporadic harassment

The incessant attacks of the Polisario Front guerrillas against Moroccan defence posts that control the security wall erected in the 1980s in the Saharan territory from north to south seek to provoke the Moroccan armed forces to unleash massive attacks against the Saharawi army units. The Polisario has issued a latest "war report" with the number 447, in which it claims to have inflicted damage on the enemy with the destruction of a Moroccan base in Guelta, in the Mahbes region, causing the death of 30 soldiers.

The Polisario Front knows that it cannot win in the military field what it considers "a war" against Morocco and intends to provoke an armed response from the Moroccan armed forces, to show it to the world and use it as propaganda at the international level. The army of the Alawi kingdom has limited itself in recent months to carrying out a few drone attacks against Polisario patrols commanded by one of its military leaders. This was the case in April 2021, when a Moroccan attack killed the head of the Sahrawi Gendarmerie, Addah el Bendir.  Since then, according to some sources, the military leaders of the guerrillas do not go out to command patrols, leaving them to subordinate personnel.

The political and diplomatic advances made by Morocco on the international stage are leaving the Polisario and the Algerian protectorate state with no means of response. The guerrillas' intended skirmishes in the territory therefore aim to create a massive response from the Moroccan army in order to present themselves to the international community as "victims of the occupation". 

A few weeks before the Europe-Africa summit to be held in Brussels, Algeria is mobilising all its diplomacy to ensure that the guerrilla Brahim Ghali is invited to the summit as "president of the Sahrawi Republic". For its part, Morocco maintains its position that the invitations issued by the EU should be to each African country recognised by Brussels individually, which would exclude SADR's participation. 

Morocco is awaiting the position of Pedro Sánchez's Spanish government. As a country interested in a political solution to the conflict and a member of the Group of Friends of the Sahara, along with the US, Britain, Russia and France, Spain should take an active stance. This would be a step towards the normalisation of relations with Morocco.