The Latest Twist For A Long Running Insurgency

Once upon a time the Spanish flag whipped in the sirocco where sandy wastes met the sea in a geographic expression then known as Spanish Sahara. Thirty-seven years ago, even before Richard Nixon cashed in his Watergate tinted chips, a group known by its Spanish initials as Polisario declared itself to be the vanguard of an independence oriented revolution. (Well, to use the proper term, a defensive insurgency with the goal of making the hot, arid, economically useless desert a zone as free of Spaniards as it is rain.)

The post-Franco Spanish government allowed as how it was quite willing to let this meaningless remnant of past colonial glory go its own way. At a speed which would put a thoroughbred racing camel to shame both Morocco and Mauritania claimed the now orphaned area of miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. Polisario disagreed. Forcefully.

The lackluster Mauritanian simulacrum of an army after a tad of defeat in its token resistance packed it in. The Moroccans were made of sterner stuff. By 1976 Morocco was in defacto control of most of what was now called simply, Western Sahara.

Never one to admit defeat--and having secured the not unimportant backing of Algeria--Polisario kept on with the good fight. Over the next decade or so the Moroccans pushed the Berber and Arab fighters of Polisario back until their only secure bases were refugee camps in Algeria.

Following the UN brokered ceasefire in 1991, which had the promise of a referendum on the future status of Western Sahara as a key feature, Morocco secured its status in the largest and more valuable part of the place with a sand berm of monumental dimensions. Polisario repaired to lick its considerable wounds in the Algerian camps. Given that Algeria had leveraged a seat in the Organization of African Unity for Polisario and continued to support its political and military ambitions, the situation was acceptable to the Polisario insurgents, leader and follower alike.

The situation stayed in this stasis with the promised referendum being postponed time after time and Morocco perfecting its hold on most but not quite all of Western Sahara for the next decade. The stasis continued for several reasons chief among which was the political crisis and attendant mass deaths which blighted the Algerian political and social landscapes as government and Islamist (primarily Salifist) opposition. The Algerian military needed more stability not less and thus acted to inhibit Polisario's ambitions.

The new century opened with changes in Morocco, particularly the coming to the throne of Mohammed VI in 1999. Since then the Kingdom has been able to inaugurate a series of political, social, and, most importantly, economic development measures which have had the incidental benefit of strengthening Morocco's hold on Western Sahara. This development has raised the bar to Polisario's success.

Also impairing Polisario in realizing its long-held dream of independence is the recurrent tilt of the UN, particularly the Security Council, in Morocco's favor. Thus frustration has grown year by year during the past decade in the camps of Algeria. No one is more frustrated and willing to embrace the most extreme of measures than the young men who have been born and come of age in the camps.

Once again something first noted in the concentration camps of the American West (aka "Reservations") has been demonstrated in the remote camps of Algeria. As on the assorted "reses" of the US and the refugee camps inhabited by Palestinians, the involuntary "refugees" constitute a ready, willing, able, and eager source of recruits for war. Even the certainty of death in war has once again been proven to be less unacceptable than continued life in the camps.

As a result the young men of the camps have become a source of recruits for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Polisario-AQIM linkage has been demonstrated with increasing frequency in the past several months with Polisario members and leaders such as Imam Muhamad Seedi and Abu Musab Abdul Wadud.

The Polisario recruits are powerfully motivated--and not simply nor solely by the desire for independence. The Salifist ideology of AQIM is at least as important--probably more so--in providing the impetus to revival within the almost moribund ranks of Polisario. This implies that the fresh troops are as willing to kill and die in Algeria as they are in Morocco or Western Sahara.

AQIM is not noted for harboring limited ambitions. The reach of the AQIM dreams (or, perhaps delusions) is seen in their urging that Morocco be attacked. The goal is not the liberation of Western Sahara. No. That would be too limited. The aim is that of compelling the Kingdom and Army of Morocco to serve as the mechanism of Islamist revanchism.

The target of the revanchist dream is Spain. More precisely it is the recovery of the lost province of al-Andalus. Actually the goal is not limited to the far marches of the Pyrenees, and since the Islamic and Islamist tenet is that any territory over which the crescent flag of the Prophet's forces once flew is forever Muslim, AQIM and its supporters demand the reconquest of south France. (Apparently the victory of Geoffry Martel at Tours was only a preliminary decision.)

AQIM has failed to gain great traction in Algeria perhaps because the memories of the pools of blood are too recent in the collective memory of Algerians generally. The addition of a large chunk of the twenty-five or so thousand young men without a country but with a faith is a most welcome boost to AQIM.

The "refugees" from Western Sahara also provide a strong mechanism for penetrating on a peer-to-peer basis the alienated youth of Morocco--thirty percent of whom are currently unemployed. Radicalization of Moroccan young men was shown in a melodramatic way last week with the deportation of two such from Italy following the discovery of their hazy plan to kill the current pope.

Moroccans are well represented in France, Spain, and Italy. They are present all through the EU. Not all are even marginally integrated in their host societies. Not all are meaningfully employed. More than a few have convinced themselves that they and their religion is the focus of baseless excoriation by Europeans. These, particularly those of the last category, represent fertile recruiting pools. The same religion based approach which has proven quite successful with the Polisario in Algeria will work with the rootless young men living in Europe.

Morocco presents a cheerful face to the world, particularly the West and the US. It likes to portray itself as a modern, tolerant, open society with a well-respected and regarded constitutional monarch supported by a democratically elected parliament. In comparison to other Muslim majority states, the Kingdom does enjoy a wide measure of civil rights, a relatively free press, a reasonably efficient bureaucracy, and a prosperous economy.

The image is attractive. It is also fragile. Morocco as a state is tenuous. It would fall before a resolute Islamist attack. This is precisely what AQIM intends as the first, necessary step to grander things.

Polisario provides a tool to mobilize people against the Kingdom. This is the case not only in the arena of domestic stability but also in international fora. Polisario has legitimacy in international affairs given its status in the African Union. It is not a declared terrorist entity unlike AQIM. It has access to the UN. And to the international media as shown by its protests during the vote to reauthorize the UN mandate in Western Sahara.

AQIM and Polisario are not strange bedfellows. Their goals are intertwined, interlocked, not simply coinciding but mutual. Beyond that, the two groups share the most intimate of connections, those of faith.