The recent announcement by the Sahrawi separatists of a drone strike attributed to Morocco against one of their leaders would, if confirmed, mark a turning point in the interminable conflict in Western Sahara, experts say.

If the use of a drone "is difficult to demonstrate", the scale of the operation carried out Wednesday April 7 is "a first since the ceasefire" signed in 1991 under the aegis of the United Nations, estimates Moroccan political scientist Mohamed Chiker, specialist in the Moroccan Armed Forces (FAR), contacted by AFP.

In the absence of official communication, however, the circumstances of this attack, its location and its modalities remain unclear.

The only certainty: Addah Al-Bendir, the head of the Polisario Front gendarmerie (independence), was killed Wednesday during a FAR operation that occurred after a Saharawi incursion, according to concordant sources.

For the rest, we do not know where or how he perished: in the northeast of Western Sahara or in the south of Morocco?

From a drone strike, or not?

The use of a drone "would mean that Morocco inaugurates the targeted strikes like the United States and Israel in a logic of response to the Polisario's incursion attempts", commented the Moroccan news site Le Desk.

"Location of suspicious movements in the buffer zone"

This site mentions a "combined mission led by an unarmed Harfang drone, of Israeli design", which pointed at the target with a "laser rangefinder" allowing a hunter "to execute the strike".

Echoing information from the Polisario, the Algerie Patriotique site denounced the use of "killer drones" and "technical assistance" from Israel.

"Officially, Morocco does not have armed drones", but it "has a panoply of unarmed drones at the cutting edge of technology", assures the Moroccan military expert Abdelhamid Harifi.

"In the region, Morocco is a pioneer in the use of drones for intelligence purposes and the designation of targets," he said.

According to him, it is therefore "possible that the army used such a drone to locate suspicious movements in the buffer zone" on Wednesday.

Information from the Moroccan press reported at the end of 2020 the delivery of three Harfang drones but also the order of Israeli Bluebird and American MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones, apparently not delivered to date.

This information coincided with the announcement at the end of 2020 of the recognition by the United States of Donald Trump of the sovereignty of Morocco over the former Spanish colony and of the normalization of relations between the Shereefian kingdom and Israel.

Drone or not, Morocco "controls all the areas of the Sahara militarily and has an arsenal capable of attacking any movement of the Polisario", assures Mohamed Chiker.

In fact, its military orders have enabled Rabat to strengthen its capacities: in two years, it has gone from 60th to 53rd place in the Global Firepower Index classifying military forces.

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"Military mission" beyond the sand wall

On the Sahrawi side, "the separatists are equipped with an armament which has changed very little since the 1980s and are totally dependent for its renewal on their Algerian protector", pointed out the weekly Jeune Afrique at the end of 2020.

According to the Far-Maroc Forum, an unofficial Moroccan armed forces Facebook page, it was in response to "suspicious movements of Polisario leaders inside the buffer zones" that the FAR retaliated, causing "several deaths. ", including that of the commander of the gendarmerie.

On Thursday, a press release released and then withdrawn by the official Sahrawi agency SPS announced that the military leader had died in Tifariti, an area in the northeast of Western Sahara controlled by the separatists, after a "military mission" beyond the wall of sand erected by Rabat.

However, information taken up by various media situates the Polisario attack and the Moroccan response in the Touizgui region (southern Morocco, near the Algerian border).

"This would mean that Algeria allows Polisario soldiers to enter Morocco from Algerian territory," warned the semi-official Moroccan website Le360.

It is in this desert region that the Moroccan army recently erected an extension of its wall.

And it is also in this area that the Polisario announced that it had killed three Moroccan soldiers during an attack on February 8, never confirmed by Rabat.

After almost 30 years of ceasefire, hostilities between Polisario and Morocco resumed in mid-November after the deployment of Moroccan troops to the far south of Western Sahara to dislodge separatists who were blocking the only road to Africa from the West because this road axis is, according to them, illegal.

Since then, the Sahrawi army has claimed daily attacks along the sand wall.

The Polisario is demanding the holding of a referendum planned by the UN in 1991. Morocco, which controls about 80% of this vast desert territory, proposes an autonomy plan under its sovereignty.

With AFP

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