Word: polisario
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...Polisario. What is it? Someone's name? Some sort of police force? Actually, it is the latest in the long list of labels attached to the world's many guerrilla armies...
...area once known as the Spanish Sahara. On one side are an estimated 30,000 troops from Morocco and Mauritania, which claimed the land that Spain surrendered sovereignty over last year under strong United Nations pressure. Opposing are the 5,000 guerrillas of the Frente Polisario (for Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro, the two provinces involved). Polisario is fighting to gain independence for a new "Saharan Arab Democratic Republic" and the 100,000 people, mostly Reguibet tribesmen, it would represent...
Cubans are also active in a number of Arab states. They train Polisario guerrillas from Western Sahara in Algeria. In South Yemen, there are more than 3,000 advisers and special forces, including MIG-flying pilots. By far the largest detachment is in Syria: 3,500 to 4,000 men, including an entire armored brigade (with 94 Russian T-62 tanks), two commando battalions, perhaps 30 or more MIG pilots...
...December, as Moroccan and Mauritanian occupying forces moved in, guerrillas from an acronymic Algerian-trained liberation group known as the Frente Polisario staged a series of violent clashes and ambushes against both armies. Polisario spokesmen claim to have inflicted particularly heavy losses on Mauritania's tiny (3,800 men) army-219 killed and 37 P.O.W.s. Two weeks ago, Polisario guerrillas downed a Moroccan F-5 fighter flying close cover during a clash between the guerrillas and Mauritanian forces. Meanwhile, Algerian diplomats denounced Moroccan "aggression" in world forums. Some 35,000 Moroccans living in Algeria were deported, and the bulk...
...problem remains: Algeria, which threatened to go to war over Morocco's annexation attempt, still opposes any settlement that is not based on a United Nations referendum. Algerian army units have been placed on combat alert near the Sahara border, and the Polisario, an Algerian-backed Saharan liberation group, says its guerrillas are ready to move into any vacuum created by the withdrawal of Spanish forces...