Word: polisarios
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...fighting, alongside Morocco, in the former Spanish Sahara. The two countries moved into the phosphate-rich colony in 1975, when Spain agreed to withdraw its troops. Despite military help from Morocco and France, Mauritania has been battered by the 5,000 members of the Marxistoriented, Algerian-backed, Polisario guerrilla movement, which demands independence for the region...
...violence continued. At Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Iraq-based Palestinian gunmen accidentally killed the local Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Seif Bin Ghobash. Their presumed target: Syria's visiting Foreign Minister, Abdul Halim Khaddam. In a remote region of northwestern Africa, guerrillas of the Polisario front, which is seeking independence for the former province of Spanish Sahara, kidnaped two French nationals in Mauritania, bringing to 13 the number of French hostages they are believed to be holding somewhere in Algeria. Following a special Cabinet meeting in Paris, French Defense Minister Yvon Bourges angrily denounced "this...
TIME Correspondent David Beckwith, who spent two weeks with Polisario guerrillas in the desert, reports that so far the shadowy Sahara war is a standoff. The Moroccans and Mauritanians hold the villages but venture cautiously into the desert for fear of ambush; Polisario fighters as a result roam freely over much of the territory, boastfully but inaccurately declaring it "liberated." The guerrillas, though, have carried the war into both Morocco and Mauritania. Last June Polisario even attempted a mortar attack on the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott (see map). Although the guerrillas lost 200 men, including Polisario's founder, Mohammed...
...shows no sign of ending, reports Beckwith, even though Morocco and Mauritania have lost about 1,000 men since last February. Other Arab governments-notably Saudi Arabia-have tried to work out a diplomatic settlement, so far without success. Supplied with East Bloc arms by Libya and Algeria, Polisario is able to struggle on from sanctuaries near the Algerian border town of Tindouf, where about 40,000 Saharoui refugees live in 22 camps. By helping the guerrillas, President Houari Boumedienne is able to keep a third of Archenemy King Hassan's Moroccan armed forces tied up in a frustrating...
...classic guerrilla fashion, Polisario fighters are mounting up to five raids a week on enemy-held villages to drain the morale of the occupiers. Beckwith accompanied them on one mortaring mission and filed this account of a five-day, 900-mile venture...