(Algiers) Algeria announced on Wednesday the death of three of its nationals in a bombing attributed to Morocco in Western Sahara, a territory at the heart of sharp tensions between the two enemy brothers of the Maghreb.
The question of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony considered as a “non-autonomous territory” by the UN in the absence of a definitive settlement, has for decades opposed Morocco, which controls nearly 80% of this vast desert territory. , to the Polisario Front, calling for a referendum of self-determination and supported by Algeria.
“Three Algerian nationals were cowardly assassinated by a barbaric bombardment of their trucks while they were making the Nouakchott-Ouargla link”, between Mauritania and Algeria, the Algerian presidency said in a statement, specifying that the attack had took place on Monday.
According to the same source, “several factors point to the Moroccan occupation forces in Western Sahara as having committed, with sophisticated weaponry, this cowardly assassination”.
About 3,500 kilometers long, the road linking Nouakchott to Ouargla, in southern Algeria, runs along Western Sahara.
The Algerian press release does not specify the exact location where the bombardment took place but Akram Kharief, head of the Algerian specialist site menadefense.net, told AFP that Algerian truckers were “killed at Bir Lahlou in Western Sahara” .
The Algerian presidency also did not give details on the “sophisticated weaponry” that Morocco is accused of having used in the attack, but Rabat had taken delivery in mid-September of a first order of drones. fighters, according to the press.
“Their assassination will not go unpunished,” said the Algerian presidency in its press release, paying tribute to “the three innocent victims of this act of state terrorism. ”
“Regional destabilization”
No official comment from the Moroccan authorities could be obtained immediately, but an informed Moroccan source told AFP that Rabat “will never be drawn into a spiral of violence and regional destabilization”.
“If Algeria wants war, Morocco does not,” added the source.
According to her, the area in which the bombardment allegedly took place is “used exclusively by military vehicles of the armed militias” of the Polisario Front.
After initial information on this incident published Tuesday on social networks, the Mauritanian army had denied in a statement that such an attack had occurred in Mauritanian territory.
Tensions have increased recently between Algeria and Morocco, culminating with Algiers breaking off diplomatic relations with its neighbor at the end of August.
The crisis erupted shortly after the normalization of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel, in exchange for the United States’ recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
The Sahrawi separatists broke on November 13, 2020 a ceasefire concluded in 1991 with Morocco, after the deployment of Moroccan forces in a buffer zone in Western Sahara.
According to an informed Moroccan source, six soldiers of the Moroccan Royal Forces (FAR) were killed following “harassment” by the Polisario separatists since the breaking of the ceasefire.
“Hostile practices”
The UN Security Council last week called on the “parties” to the conflict to resume negotiations “without preconditions and in good faith”, by passing a resolution extending the Minurso mission in the region for one year.
But Algeria, opposed to a resumption of negotiations in the form of round tables organized in Switzerland, denounced this resolution as “partial”.
Another consequence of the rise in tensions between Algiers and Rabat, Algeria has decided not to renew at the end of October the gas pipeline contract passing through Morocco and supplying Spain with Algerian gas, citing “practices of a hostile nature in the kingdom” neighbor.
Since 1996, Algeria has shipped to Spain and Portugal around 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year via the Gaz Maghreb Europe (GME) pipeline.
In return for the transit of the gas pipeline, Rabat received annually nearly one billion m3 of natural gas. Half was rights of way paid in kind, the other half was cheaply purchased gas, according to industry experts.
Algerian gas deliveries to Spain will now be made exclusively via another pipeline, the Medgaz submarine gas pipeline, and in the form of liquefied natural gas delivered by sea.