The Polisario Front of Western Sahara claims to have attacked the border area of ​​Guerguerat

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 announced 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 on November 13 a military operation in the buffer zone of Guerguerat, in the extreme south of the former Spanish colony, to drive out a group of Sahrawi militants who were blocking a transit route to neighboring Mauritania.

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.

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 President Donald Trump, Washington last year broke decades of precedent by recognizing Morocco’s full sovereignty over the territory, in exchange for Rabat’s normalization of relations with Israel.