The case for redirecting US aid for the Polisario-run camps in Algeria (Part II)

 

Chronology: 

Documented incidents and reports linking members of the Polisario Front with AQIM, trafficking, and other illicit activities in the region. 

March 12, 2012 

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publishes a paper underscoring the “disturbing reality” that growing numbers of disenchanted Polisario youth and fighters are being recruited by AQIM and a “vast network” of regional drug traffickers. The paper cites the Oct.23 kidnappings as confirmation that, “the deteriorating social and political conditions in the camps in Tindouf represent a tinderbox waiting to explode.” It also notes that AQIM-Polisario member links pose “a major security threat to the Maghreb and the Sahel.”xvi 

Feb. 21, 2012 

Experts testify to a United Nations Security Council special session that drug cartels and smugglers now traffic almost $1 billion in cocaine a year from Latin America into Africa’s Sahel. They add that traffickers are forming alliances with AQIM and other militants, in a region that has seen an influx of Libyan weapons.  Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned leaders: “inaction could be catastrophic.”xvii 

Feb. 2, 2012 

ICTS releases a study reporting that the Polisario-run camps near Tindouf, Algeria have become “a recruiting ground for terrorists, traffickers, and other criminal enterprises.” The study recommends that Western aid to the camps “prioritize permanent resettlement” for the refugees to confront this new reality. Noting expanding AQIM links with Polisario members, South American drug cartels, Boko Haram, and al-Shabaab, as well as AQIM’s access to the influx of Libyan weapons in the Sahel, the study cites a 500% rise in terrorist attacks in the region since 9/11. It argues that AQIM is seeking to extend an “arc of instability” across Africa to exploit turbulence from the Arab Spring and destabilize the region. xviii 

Jan. 11, 2012 

Algerian and Mauritanian security agencies reportedly break up major drug trafficking and money laundering rings. Officials say the rings are believed to be linked with groups such as al-Qaeda, which is working with the Polisario to traffic arms and drugs from Mauritania to northern neighbors. Mali reportedly also steps up efforts against AQIM and what is believed its latest offshoot, “Al Qaida in Polisario Camps,” said to have abducted two French nationals Nov. 2011.xix 

Jan. 3, 2012 

Security expert Dr. J. Peter Pham, Atlantic Council, reports that economic and political reforms in Africa are “threatened by the spread of violent extremism” and “increasing links” between AQIM and other militants in the Sahel, recently “buoyed by the flow of arms and fighters” from Libya. “More ominously, AQIM has increased its linkages with the Polisario,” evident in AQIM’s Oct. 23 kidnappings near Tindouf, which were “aided by Polisario sympathizers” inside the Polisario’s camps. The camps offer “a ready pool of potential recruits” from “large numbers of idle young fighters.”xx 

 Dec. 27, 2011 

Mali reportedly distances itself from the Polisario, accusing it of kidnapping, drug trafficking, and suspected collusion with a Sahrawi branch of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb.  A source close to the government says Mali is « angry » with the Polisario, and Malian officials say the Oct. 23 kidnapping was done in collusion with the ‘Sahrawi link’ of AQIM.xxi 

 Dec. 24, 2011 

Mali refuses entry to « eight young Sahrawis » coming from Niger.  “They had no papers. There are laws to be respected in Mali especially when it comes to dubious propaganda,” said Malian police.xxii 

 Dec. 17, 2011 

Mali warns the Polisario, “our country is not the Wild West where they can come to kill and kidnap people.” Bamako will « no longer accept the violation of its territorial integrity by the Polisario Front, » says a Malian Minister. A local official adds, « everybody here knows who AQIM’s accomplices are, they even assisted in abducting the Europeans in Tindouf. His name is Omar al Sahraoui, but neither Mali, nor Algeria, nor the Polisario are doing anything to capture him. » In 2010, al Sahraoui, reportedly a Polisario veteran, was sentenced to 12 years in Mauritania for kidnapping Spanish aid workers for AQIM, according to Mauritanian court papers.  He was later released in a trade for the aid workers. xxiii 

Page Break

Dec. 15, 2011 

Members of the Polisario launch an armed incursion into northern Mali, killing one and abducting three others, ostensibly looking for the kidnappers of three Western aid workers taken Oct. 23 from the Polisario-run camps near Tindouf, Algeria.xxiv