Tags : Morocco, Western Sahara, Polisario Front, nogotiations, UN, terrorism,

Morocco Deploys its Lobbying Arsenal to Have Trump Declare Polisario a Terrorist Organization

Some Anglo-Saxon politicians, Moroccan lobbies, and an avalanche of Rabat-aligned opinion-makers urge Donald Trump to include the Sahrawi movement on the list of terrorist organizations.

By Ignacio Cembrero

Is the Polisario Front a terrorist organization? Since Donald Trump arrived at the White House, Moroccan lobbies have been determined to demonstrate that it is, hoping, perhaps, that the U.S. will include it on the blacklist of terrorist movements, thus providing an additional pretext for not sitting at a negotiating table with it. Throughout April, publications and statements have multiplied, presenting analyses and data that supposedly support the Sahrawi movement’s ties to Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah, or the jihadism that plagues the Sahel.

The trigger for this campaign was an article published in mid-April by researcher Zineb Riboua, of Moroccan origin, at the American neoconservative think-tank Hudson Institute, titled: « The Strategic Argument for Designating Polisario as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. » Riboua mixes in her article elements that cast doubt on the Polisario’s good management of Sahrawi refugee camps, such as alleged diversions of humanitarian aid, with others that could reveal its links to radical organizations like Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

She also accuses it of arms smuggling to benefit jihadists in the Sahel. « We are not facing a peaceful movement, but an organization with dangerous ramifications, » Riboua wrote.  

At the same time, The Washington Post published information claiming that Iran « trained Polisario Front fighters » and that « hundreds of them are now detained by Syria’s new security forces. » It cited two officials as sources, one Syrian and one European. Ahmed Attaf, the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, had already denied the participation of Algerian military personnel in the civil war in Syria.

The Polisario, in turn, denied that its militiamen had been trained by Iran or its allies like Hezbollah. Algiers did, however, maintain close relations with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and with Tehran. This latter relationship persists. The thesis presented by Riboua at the Hudson Institute prompted some Anglo-Saxon politicians to encourage Trump to classify the Polisario as a terrorist.  

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson was the first to praise the « incisive » article on X and then call for the Sahrawi movement to be labeled as terrorist. « Trump will resolve this, » he predicted. Liam Fox, former UK Defense Secretary, joined him, among others.

Subsequently, a cohort of Latin American politicians, such as Brazilian Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair, or Buenos Aires deputy Álvaro González, suddenly appeared on social media, expressing their interest in the Western Sahara conflict. They unanimously called on their governments to label the Polisario as terrorist without delay.

Simultaneously, an avalanche of Moroccan columnists emerged, starting with Lahcen Haddad, senator and former Minister of Tourism, and including Cherkaoui Roudani, a geopolitics expert. The latter asserted on the Spanish news site Atalayar, close to Moroccan authorities, that « reclassifying » the Polisario was nothing less than « a doctrinal necessity to secure NATO’s southern flank (…) ». One newspaper, Le 360, linked to Mounir Majidi, the personal secretary of King Mohammed VI, even published alleged confidential documents from 2012 from Syrian secret services about their ties with the Sahrawis. To illustrate its information, it also posted cartoons on its website in which Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario, appears wearing an ISIS t-shirt and cap.

This newspaper and others recall that a Sahrawi, nicknamed Adnane Abou Walid, born in El Aaiún in 1973, was one of the founders of ISIS in the Sahel. He ordered the ambush in which four U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger in October 2017. The terrorist died in a French air force bombing in September 2021. It is true that a handful of Sahrawis have joined the ranks of jihadism, but the Moroccans who have taken this step are far more numerous.

The Polisario was built in the image of Algeria, a country that suffered the scourge of terrorism in the 90s and that exercises tutelage over the Sahrawi camps to prevent any excesses. The Sahrawi movement also has a history of clashes with jihadists. Its militiamen, for example, engaged in December 2011 in attempting to rescue the three Catalan volunteers kidnapped by Al-Qaeda’s Maghreb branch. To do this, they confronted a group of drug traffickers in the Mauritanian desert with gunfire. However, they did not manage to find the hostages.

Beyond the Polisario’s denials, no Sahrawis captured by the new Syrian authorities have appeared before cameras to testify that they were sent there to train or fight for Al-Assad. No police or European secret service officials have pointed to the Sahrawis for their links to terrorism either. In its last declassified reports, dating back to the 80s, the CIA described it as a « guerrilla. »

Shortly before the start of the Gaza war, in October 2023, this journalist had the opportunity to speak at length in Madrid with an Israeli general who had just left his position in his country’s military intelligence. He stated that they had never detected any relationship between the Polisario and Iran or Hezbollah.

The Sahrawi movement resumed the war against Morocco in November 2020 after the Moroccan army crossed the wall behind which it is entrenched to enter a restricted area, thus violating the military ceasefire agreement. Equipped with the scrap weaponry provided by Algeria, its war is of very low intensity. Although it announced that it would have drones, these have never flown over the skies of the Sahara.

On the EU side, no one has asked for the Polisario to be included on the European list of terrorist groups. On the contrary, Josep Borrell, then High Representative for Foreign Policy, responded in 2023 to a question in the European Parliament that the EU « has no information on possible collaboration between the Polisario and terrorist groups in the region. »

The EU Court of Justice recognized the Polisario, in its October 2024 rulings, as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, with the legal capacity to act before European courts. « Labeling the Polisario Front as a terrorist organization would be tantamount to criminalizing a national liberation movement supported by international law, » wrote French socialist Selim Djellab, very active on social media in defense of the Sahrawis.

« This would constitute a dangerous precedent in decolonization processes » like the one pending in the Sahara, he added. It remains to be seen what the Trump administration will do in the face of this Moroccan aspiration to demonize the Polisario. In its three months of existence, Trump’s diplomacy has reaffirmed, on April 8, that it « recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports the Autonomy Proposal » for the former Spanish colony, as it did in December 2020.  

Washington has not announced the opening of a consulate in Dakhla (formerly Villa Cisneros), as Trump promised in 2020, and the American-Moroccan military maneuvers that are currently taking place do not encompass Western Sahara. Finally, U.S. diplomacy has not mobilized to promote that major international conference, so desired by Rabat, in which Westerners, Africans, and Arabs would, outside the UN, give major support to the autonomy solution that Morocco advocates to resolve the Sahara conflict.

Source : El Confidencial, 05/05/2025

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