Tags : Morocco, Algeria, Western Sahara, Frente Polisario, Donald Trump,
Rabat Warns of “Signs” of an Algerian Threat Aiming to Escalate from Regional Conflict to Direct Confrontation
By Juan Carlos Sanz
Tensions at the border between Algeria and Morocco, closed for 25 years, have intensified following the re-election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, Morocco’s main ally. Morocco’s Defense Minister, Abdelatif Ludiyi, announced the strengthening of border surveillance through the deployment of forward posts with electronic and optical movement detection systems, high-sensitivity seismic sensors, fixed and mobile radars, and observation drones.
« Border surveillance is one of the main concerns of our Armed Forces, » Ludiyi stated on Friday in Parliament, presenting his department’s 2025 budget, which allocates more than 500 million euros for this purpose. The desert border was the site of the so-called Sand War six decades ago, fought over territorial disputes between the two Maghreb states, which have had broken diplomatic relations for the past three years.
The military strengthening of Morocco at its territorial limit marks nearly two decades of rearmament by both neighbors, with Algeria emerging as the highest military spender in Africa, with a 2025 budget of approximately 24 billion euros. Morocco follows with half the expenditure. However, the two Maghreb rivals allocate roughly the same proportion of their GDP to defense—around 10%—and have increased defense budgets by over 7% for the coming year, escalating an arms race that threatens to hinder regional economic development. NATO member states, by contrast, are currently aiming for a 2% military expenditure as a percentage of GDP.
« This significant increase highlights Morocco’s strategic choice to reinforce its Armed Forces’ defense capabilities in an increasingly unstable regional and international context, » says military affairs expert Nizar Derdabi, cited by Moroccan weekly Tel Quel. According to this analyst, terrorist threats from the Sahel, alongside the ongoing conflict with the Polisario Front—supported by Algeria and advocating for the independence of Western Sahara, which has been under Moroccan control since Spain’s withdrawal in 1975—are contributing to the tensions.
Four years ago, the Polisario broke the ceasefire that had been in place since 1991 after Moroccan forces deployed to the border post with Mauritania in Guerguerat, in the southern part of the Sahrawi territory.
« Exit to the Atlantic »
On the night of November 6, shortly after Donald Trump’s election victory was confirmed, which would return him to the White House in January, King Mohammed VI urged Algeria, without explicitly naming it, to cease destabilizing maneuvers from those « seeking an exit to the Atlantic. » The monarch conveyed this coded message during his speech for the 49th anniversary of the Green March, the mobilization of tens of thousands of Moroccans that changed the fate of Western Sahara by forcing Spanish troops to withdraw.
A week later, Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita was more explicit in Parliament, warning of “signs of escalation [toward war] from Algeria, with an apparent intention to shift from the current regional conflict to direct confrontation.” Bourita used the presentation of his department’s 2025 budget to assert, without diplomatic euphemisms, that intelligence services have « concrete data » regarding Algeria’s intentions to trigger an armed confrontation following Morocco’s recent diplomatic advances.
At the end of October, French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed in the French National Assembly that France views “the present and future of Western Sahara within the framework of Morocco’s sovereignty.”
Accusations and war rhetoric are common in both Moroccan and Algerian media, although high-ranking political figures rarely express them so bluntly. From Algeria, former minister and diplomat Abdelaziz Rahabi, who served as ambassador to Madrid, has accused Morocco’s foreign minister of provoking a « strategy of tension » due to Morocco’s rearmament program. In an opinion piece for Algerian newspaper El Watan, Rahabi attributes Rabat’s “arrogance” to Macron’s shift in favor of Morocco’s position and Trump’s imminent return to power.
“Geography imposes rearmament demands on Algeria—with two dozen countries involved militarily around our borders, such as those from the Sahel or Libya—which Morocco, an ally of the US, France, and Israel in recent years, does not have,” Rahabi justifies Algeria’s growing defense spending. Algeria officially claims to be a non-aligned country, although Russia is its main arms supplier.
Low-Intensity War
Economic constraints and a cautious development policy have led Morocco to keep its arms procurement plans separate. The strengthening of its military capacity is distributed among the acquisition of F-16 fighter jets and Apache attack helicopters from the US, Brazilian Embraer C-390 transport planes, an Avante-class patrol vessel from Spanish shipyards Navantia, French Caesar artillery, and even US Patriot missile batteries. Morocco seems to focus on technological advantages, such as spy satellites, and strategic breakthrough weaponry like drones, as opposed to Algeria’s massive superiority in aviation, tanks, and artillery.
The UN Security Council called on October 31 to find a « realistic, feasible, and mutually acceptable » political solution for the Western Sahara conflict. Algeria and Russia did not support the resolution presented by the US, which included this statement. This month, Morocco claims to have killed seven Sahrawi militia members through drone strikes in retaliation for armed actions by the Polisario. Two of them were killed in the area of Gleibat el Fula (southeast), near the wall or embankment built by Morocco dividing the territory, when a convoy of vehicles was bombed from the air.
Five other combatants lost their lives near Mahbes, a town in northeastern Sahara where an event was being held to commemorate the Green March anniversary. The Polisario recorded the incidents in its official reports, without mentioning its own casualties, in a conflict the United Nations has described as a low-intensity war.
El País, November 21, 2024
#Morocco #Algeria #WesternSahara
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