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Algeria rips House appropriators over Sahara coercion

Algiers is furious at pro-Moroccan language in the annual foreign aid bill.
An indigenous Sahrawi woman walks at a refugee camp of Boudjdour in Tindouf, southern Algeria March 3, 2016. In refugee camps near the town of Tindouf in arid southern Algeria, conditions are hard for indigenous Sahrawi residents. Residents use car batteries for electricity at night and depend on humanitarian aid to get by. The five camps near Tindouf are home to an estimated 165,000 Sahrawi refugees from the disputed region of Western Sahara, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. REUTERS/Zo

Algeria is warning US lawmakers of "consequences" if they continue siding with regional rival Morocco in the dispute over the Western Sahara.

In a letter to House appropriators late last month, Ambassador to Washington Madjid Bouguerra expressed his "deep disappointment" with language in the pending annual foreign aid spending bill that echoes Rabat's stance on the decades-old conflict. Morocco claims the disputed territory and administers about 85% of it, while many indigenous Sahrawis have taken refuge across the border in Tindouf, Algeria. 

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