Egypt backs Polisario Front, risks relations with Morocco
As the conflict between the Polisario Front and Morocco intensifies, more than eight Arab countries rush to declare their full support for the kingdom, while Egypt simply calls on the parties to show restraint and refrain from any provocative actions.
CAIRO — Violence between Morocco and the Polisario Front (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and the Valley of Gold) has recently escalated in the disputed Western Sahara territory.
On Nov. 19, the Sahrawi National Ministry of Defense announced in an official statement that its forces launched intense attacks on a military wall that cuts through the Western Sahara territory. The Moroccan army erected the 2,700-kilometer-long sand wall at the end of the 1980s as a separation barrier from the Polisario Front.
The escalation comes after Morocco launched a military operation to reopen a key highway at the Guerguerat border crossing between Western Sahara and Mauritania, which had been blocked by members of the Polisario Front for three weeks, according to a Nov. 13 statement by the Moroccan Defense Ministry. Morocco uses this crossing to transport its products and goods to West Africa.
The next day, the Polisario Front declared a “state of war” and ended its commitment to the cease-fire agreement signed between the two parties in 1991.
