Mauritania arrests 8 Polisario members for smuggling
Mauritania-Algeria, Local, 12/21/2004

The Mauritanian security forces arrested end of last week near the city of Zouirate, eight members of the Polisario secessionist group and seized two trucks, loaded with spare parts and smuggled goods, a source in Nouackchott said.

According to the source, a car-chase was necessary to arrest the smugglers after the drivers failed to stop at a check point and the security elements had to shoot at the truck tires to force them to stop.

The trucks were bound to the Tindouf camps in southern Algeria, den of the Polisario, an Algeria-backed separatist group seeking to separate Moroccan southern provinces, or the Sahara, from the rest of Morocco which retrieved this territory from Spanish occupation in 1975 under the Madrid Accords.

The Mauritanian authorities have been conducting over the last months anti-smuggling operations after finding that gangs from the Polisario are practicing smuggling, cigarettes trafficking and illegal migration.

Previous Stories:
  Mauritania destroys its final supply of anti-personnel mines   (12/15/2004)
  Mauritania arrests Polisario members and 51 candidates to illegal migration   (11/11/2004)
  Algeria: ending the occupation of the Mauritania embassy   (8/6/1999)

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