Since November 1, a new affair has shaken relations between Algeria and Morocco. This time, it is about the death of three Algerian truckers caught in a bombardment on the territory of Western Sahara. Algiers accuses Rabat of a “cowardly assassination”, committed with a “sophisticated weaponry”.
“Three Algerian nationals were cowardly murdered by a barbaric bombardment of their trucks while they were making the Nouakchott-Ouargla link”, between Mauritania and Algeria, said the Algerian presidency in a press release.
Messages have been sent to the UN and the African Union to inform “the extreme gravity of the act of state terrorism in question, which no circumstances can justify”, according to the terms of the press release.
As AFP points out, Algiers does not specify from which “sophisticated weaponry” it’s about. But the Algerian specialist site Menadefense looks back in detail on the circumstances “of the Moroccan attack on Algerian civilians”. Two trucks registered in Ouargla, chartered for a delivery of white cement to Mauritania, returned empty to Algeria. According to the owner of the transport company, all this was done within a legal framework. But after crossing the border, the three drivers chose to take a shortcut, to save time and avoid the risk of silting up.
# عندما # چورچيا_٨٠ # المغرب # الجزائر #Morocco #Algeria
Algeria has accused its arch-rival Morocco of killing three Algerians on a desert highway, as tensions escalate between the neighbors over the contested Western Sahara.#Algeria pic.twitter.com/Bbw7C9iMuB– AMERICAN COP (@cop_american) November 4, 2021
“The place where the two trucks were located is more than 35 kilometers south-east of the Moroccan ‘defense wall’ and the first military installations of the Moroccan armed forces”, specifies the site. According to which it was probably a drone attack, either Turkish or Israeli material. Since a drone can easily identify its target, “It is therefore probable that the attack was carried out deliberately, with or without knowledge of the nationality of the victims”, concludes Menadefense.
A case now considered a casus belli by Algiers which ensures that this “will not go unpunished”. Another step in the escalation towards an armed conflict that Rabat does not intend to stir up and which has not been the subject of any official comment from Morocco. But a Moroccan “source” told AFP that the track used by the three truckers is “used exclusively by military vehicles of armed militias” of the Polisario Front. Clearly, the attack would have taken place, but the drone operator might have misinterpreted the presence of these two trucks, mistaking them for vehicles of the Polisario Front rebels.