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- The Polisario Front launched an attack on the border between Morocco and Mauritania.
- The group is fighting for the independence of Western Sahara.
- A Moroccan official said the attack did not disrupt traffic on a disputed road.
The Western Sahara independence Polisario Front launched an overnight attack on the Guerguerat area, on the border between Morocco and Mauritania, the Sahrawi press agency SPS said in a statement on Sunday.
“The Sahrawi army launched four rockets in the direction of … Guerguerat,” said the SPS, citing a military leader of the Sahrawi separatist forces.
Morocco launched a military operation on November 13 in the buffer zone of Guerguerat, in the far south of the former Spanish colony, to drive out a group of Sahrawi militants who were blocking a transit route to neighboring Mauritania.
READ | US Security Council to talk about Western Sahara after Trump’s policy change
The press release also reported attacks along the security wall that separates Sahrawi fighters from Moroccan forces in the vast desert territory.
A senior Moroccan official contacted by AFP in Rabat said: “There was harassment fire near the Guerguerat area, but it did not affect the national road, traffic was not disrupted. “
Western Sahara is a disputed and divided former Spanish colony, mainly under the control of Morocco, where tensions with the Polisario Front have simmered since the 1970s.
Independance War
In November, Morocco sent troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone to reopen a key road to Mauritania.
The Polisario responded by declaring a 1991 ceasefire null and void, arguing that the road did not exist when the truce was signed.
The two sides have since reportedly exchanged regular fire along the demarcation line.
The negotiations conducted by the UN between Morocco and the Polisario, with Algeria and Mauritania as observers, have been suspended since March 2019.
The Polisario Front fought a war for Moroccan independence from 1975 to 1991.
The UN-backed ceasefire agreement was supposed to lead to a self-determination referendum.
Morocco has offered autonomy, but maintains that the territory is a sovereign part of the kingdom.
Under former US President Donald Trump, Washington last year broke decades of precedent by recognizing Morocco’s full sovereignty over the territory, in exchange for the normalization of Rabat with Israel.
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