Polisario established links with Algerian terrorist group GSPC and Afghan war veterans, politologist
Algeria-Morocco, Politics, 4/17/2004

The Algerian-backed separatist movement "Polisario" has established links with Algerian terrorist group GSPC (French acronym for Salafist Group for predication and Combat) and radical Islamists, mainly Afghan war veterans, according to a French politologist.

Aymeric Chauprade, professor of Geopolitics at the Paris-based Sorbone university and director of studies at l'Ecole de Guerre (War school) in Paris, made this assertion in an interview published Friday by the Moroccan weekly "La Vie eco." He talked about "complimentarily" between these groups.

The Polisario is claiming the independence of the Moroccan Sahara, known as Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony was retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid Accords signed with Spain and Mauritania.

Quoting experts, Chauprade estimated the number of those veterans between 500 and 600 who fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and who might be now in a vast zone which he called "the fundamentalist arc of the Sahara" stretching from Southern Morocco and Algeria to the North of Chad, through Mali, Niger and Mauritania.

Previous Stories:
  King Mohammed, Bouteflika highlight need to hold Arab summit soon   (4/12/2004)
  Boufelika: I will never let an Algerian die for Western Sahara   (4/2/2004)
  Polisario threatens peace in maghreb and the world, experts   (4/2/2004)

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