Fighting has broken out anew in Western Sahara, with the Polisario Front renouncing a 30-year-old ceasefire in late 2020.
Meanwhile, fighting has broken out anew in Western Sahara, with the Polisario Front renouncing a 30-year-old ceasefire in late 2020. Since then, Rabat and the Polisario have been locked in a war of attrition, which has imperilled the UN mission in Western Sahara since 1991. In 2022 and 2023, the mission said it might have to withdraw, which in turn might have brought Moroccan and Algerian troops face to face on the border, dramatically increasing the risk of a cross-border war. The mission was preserved, thanks to U.S. intercession, and tensions subsequently eased. External actors have played a variety of roles. From Washington, the Biden administration has tried to prevent a direct conflict by deepening its engagement with all three parties at the core of the crisis – Algeria, Morocco and the Polisario. European governments, by contrast, have struggled with their diplomacy, caught in the middle of the zero-sum game between Algiers and Rabat. Spain and France tried to stay on good terms with both countries but eventually aligned themselves with Morocco, expressing support for its preferred solution to the Western Sahara conflict. In both cases, the shift alienated Algeria. The European Union has tried to shield its relationship with Morocco from the repercussions of a long-running legal battle over Western Sahara at the European Court of Justice, striving (with mixed success) to balance this effort with outreach to Algeria. The Algeria-Morocco rivalry has spilled over into other parts of North and sub-Saharan Africa. Morocco has taken advantage of Algeria’s declining influence in the Sahel to offer to build a motorway connecting this region to Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. In response, Algiers has proposed a new North African grouping that includes Libya and Tunisia and excludes Morocco. At the African Union, frictions between the two neighbours have at times undermined the regular functioning of institutions. Through mutual self-restraint and with U.S. help, Algeria and Morocco have managed to avoid a military clash, but the danger is not past. In Western Sahara, through trial and error, the two sides appear to have settled on certain rules of the game (underpinned in some respects by their obligations under international law) that involve protecting civilians and safeguarding the UN mission’s role on the ground. But the precarious status quo could be shaped by several risk factors. These include calls from restless Polisario activists for more aggressive action against Morocco; the arms race between Algiers and Rabat; the effects of online rhetoric; and the possibility that the incoming Trump administration will upset the diplomatic equilibrium fashioned by the Biden team. With the U.S. in a moment of political transition, European governments may need to take the lead in helping manage tensions between the two neighbours. They and other interested outside actors should encourage the parties to treat as sacrosanct the emerging rules of the game, encourage suppliers to calibrate their shipments to Rabat and Algiers in order to contain the risk of a destabilising arms race, help relaunch UN-led negotiations over Western Sahara, and encourage social media platforms to monitor and curtail incendiary disinformation. When conditions are ripe, the next step will be for Algeria and Morocco to restore ties – and ideally to go beyond diplomatic normalisation to promote cooperation on border security, infrastructure and trade as the basis for a more stable, productive and enduring relationship.
Morocco’s claims led to quarrels over the definition of the frontier, which Rabat said the French had drawn in a way allocating territory to Algeria that had traditionally been controlled by tribes loyal to the Moroccan monarchy. This disagreement, in turn, escalated into a series of border skirmishes, followed by open warfare in October 1963. The fighting, which came to be known as the Sand War, was confined to the borderlands, but it resulted in hundreds of deaths on both sides, both of which also took hundreds of prisoners. In February 1964, after other parties had made several unsuccessful attempts at mediation, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) negotiated a ceasefire that left the border unchanged.8 The Sand War, and the patriotic fervour it created on both sides, consolidated the two newly independent states and their respective authoritarian regimes, while “strengthen[ing] both armies in their nationalism”, as a Moroccan historian put it.9 In Algeria, it reinforced both President Houari Boumediene’s power and the army’s ascendancy within the governing National Liberation Front. In Morocco, it bolstered the rule of King Hassan II. Competition between the two nationalisms continued to have an ideological component. Algeria, a self-described socialist republic that was non-aligned during the Cold War, steered diplomatically closer to the Eastern Bloc while achieving a degree of economic independence thanks to its oil and gas riches. Morocco, by contrast, was a conservative monarchy with a liberal economy, more inclined toward the West.10 Over the next 60 years, the two countries went through cycles of détente and tension in their relations. On 15 June 1972, they signed a border demarcation agreement recognising that colonial-era boundaries are inviolable, a principle championed by the OAU across the continent.11 They also agreed to increase bilateral cooperation in all areas and refer any outstanding disputes to joint commissions.12 Finally, they announced the founding of a joint Algerian-Moroccan company to mine lead and zinc at El Abed on the border.13 But the Western Sahara question soon sparked a major crisis in bilateral relations. In 1973, the Polisario Front – which had formed that year in Mauritania to seek independence on behalf of Western Sahara’s Sahrawi people – began fighting to liberate the territory from Spain. After Madrid withdrew its forces two years later, Mauritania and Morocco each took over parts of the former Spanish colony.14 The Polisario continued to battle both, and (despite lacking territorial control) it declared a state, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, in 1976. Citing its support for the principle of self-determination, and wishing to afflict King Hassan II with what Algerians sometimes referred to as a “fixation abscess”, as he had failed to get the border demarcation agreement through the Moroccan parliament, Algiers recognised the Polisario’s claim to statehood.15 In a show of solidarity, it expelled 45,000 Moroccans from Algerian territory, after which Morocco cut diplomatic ties. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from Western Sahara under Polisario fire, leaving Rabat in control of most of the disputed area. Morocco’s actions in Western Sahara brought sharp criticism from the OAU, leading it to quit the organisation in 1984. It was only in 1988 that Algeria and Morocco re-established diplomatic ties. They agreed to intensify trade exchanges and form the Arab Maghreb Union, which is still the most ambitious attempt at regional integration (though it eventually failed).16 The Algerian and Moroccan energy ministers also approved construction of a gas pipeline connecting Algeria to Europe via Morocco.17 Frictions eased on the Western Sahara front as well, as a 1991 UN-mediated Settlement Plan introduced a ceasefire and created a buffer zone that divided the territory between Morocco (which was left in control of 80 per cent) and the Polisario. Ever since, a UN mission called MINURSO has been monitoring the buffer zone, which by the ceasefire terms is to remain free of either Moroccan soldiers or Polisario fighters. The UN also proposed a referendum on self-determination, in which the territory’s residents would choose absorption by Morocco or independence.
The rapprochement [between Algeria and Morocco] cooled in 1994, following a spat over a shooting that killed two Spanish tourists at the Atlas-Asni hotel in Marrakesh.
Charting its own course
At the same time, Mohamed VI has backed an increasingly tough stance on Western Sahara. Since 1991, Morocco had nominally accepted the idea of a UN-sponsored referendum on self-determination for the territory. The plebiscite has never taken place, however, due to disagreements between Morocco and the Polisario over who should be allowed to vote.27 Rabat grew increasingly dubious of the referendum’s value, and Mohamed VI decided to pull the plug on it. In a 2002 speech, the king began expressing scepticism, saying a referendum was “unworkable”.28 Five years later, Morocco officially withdrew its support for the endeavour, replacing it with an “autonomy plan” that provided for partial devolution of powers to Western Sahara as a region under Rabat’s sovereignty.29 The Polisario rejected the scheme. Algeria did as well. These reactions reinforced Morocco’s opinion of the Polisario as an Algerian proxy implicated in an artificial dispute that should be resolved as part of a regional grand bargain over borders and security.30 In keeping with this view, Rabat expects the parties to discuss the issue in a roundtable format including Algeria and Mauritania. Two such roundtables took place in 2019, albeit without yielding a resolution, and Morocco wants them to continue. The Polisario, backed by Algiers, participated in 2019; it was encouraged by the UN Security Council’s renewed involvement with the conflict (which owed to personal efforts by then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton). But in 2020 it backed out, due to its frustration with the UN process, which it sees as skewed in Rabat’s favour and desires to reset.31 The issue is now central to Morocco’s foreign relations.32 Rabat has become increasingly intolerant of external actors who express sympathy for Sahrawi self-determination, triggering diplomatic rows – some more public than others – with the European Union, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Tunisia. In an August 2022 speech, the king defined the Western Sahara question as the prism through which Morocco considers its international environment and the yardstick that measures the sincerity of friendships and the effectiveness of partnerships established by the kingdom.33
Since 2019, Rabat has encouraged foreign governments to open consulates in Laayoune and Dakhla in Western Sahara to signal recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory. A number of African, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries have done so, testifying to the success of Morocco’s gambit. The Polisario watched these developments with mounting disquiet. Many within the movement argued that international diplomacy was leading nowhere and called for a return to arms. The flashpoint came in late 2020, when pro-Polisario activists (soon joined by a small number of Polisario fighters) set up camp in the middle of a road connecting Morocco to Mauritania through Western Sahara and the UN-monitored buffer zone. Morocco sent in troops to clear the blockade. Both actions violated the ceasefire, which the Polisario renounced on 14 November, commencing a round of attacks on Moroccan positions.34 But Morocco would score a diplomatic triumph the next month, during the last days of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, when the U.S. recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in return for the kingdom normalising diplomatic relations with Israel. For Washington, it was a break with decades of U.S. policy supporting a negotiated settlement of the Western Sahara question. It was also a somewhat surprising decision for Rabat to take. Although it advanced Morocco’s agenda in North Africa, many Moroccans who sympathise with the Palestinian cause were unhappy to see their government draw closer to Israel.35 But the move did not generate enough pushback to trouble officials. A former Moroccan diplomat explained that the kingdom wants “to diversify its ties with the rest of the world. … There is no taboo as long as it fits our national interests”.36
There is no evidence that contacts among Algeria, the Polisario, Iran and Hizbollah go beyond diplomatic exchanges.
Meanwhile, the situation in Western Sahara continued to fester, contributing to the risk of a direct confrontation between the two neighbours. Since late 2020, the Polisario and Morocco have been engaged in a low-intensity war of attrition that, thus far, no one has tried hard to stop. The UN Security Council remained silent for months after the ceasefire collapsed, whipsawed between the two sides (the Polisario wanted external actors to step in, while Morocco opposed the idea). Several members felt that the conflict was sufficiently contained that the Council need not take action.82 Meanwhile, the parties continue to disagree over the terms of a possible resumption of UN-led negotiations. The Polisario has insisted on returning to bilateral talks that would pave the way for a referendum on self-determination, along the lines of the 1991 UN Settlement Plan. By contrast, Rabat has stuck to its autonomy plan, with the roundtable format that the parties adopted in 2019. Amid this stalemate, the Polisario started to come under increasing pressure from its activists, especially younger ones, to escalate militarily. Many consider the Front’s tactics to date insufficient to force Morocco to accept a referendum.83 Spurred by these restless constituents, the Polisario has occasionally experimented with a more confrontational approach. In August 2022, when an alleged Moroccan drone strike destroyed a Polisario truck used to carry water to MINURSO posts in the buffer zone, the Front suspended its convoys to these sites, allowing only two helicopter resupply flights per month.84 With this action, it sought to signal that, with no ceasefire in place and no talks under way, the UN mission was no longer fit for purpose. The Polisario hoped thereby to nudge outside powers to take a more active interest in resolving the conflict, rather than stay satisfied with the status quo.85 In so doing, however, it set in motion a series of escalating moves that could have culminated in conflict between Morocco and Algeria. The first link was that, as its fuel and food stores began to run low, MINURSO warned it might have to pull out. Hilale, Rabat’s ambassador to the UN, replied by asserting that if the mission were to dissolve, then Morocco “would be entitled to regain the part of the Sahara that was handed over [by Morocco] to MINURSO”, ie, the buffer zone.86 In that scenario, Moroccan troops would be taking up positions along the border between Western Sahara and Algeria, close to Tindouf, site of Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria housing an estimated 173,000 refugees. There, they would be exposed to Polisario attacks from Algerian territory, which could in turn prompt Rabat to invoke a right of pursuit, perhaps leading to clashes between Algerian and Moroccan troops. The risk of such a confrontation jolted the U.S. into action. U.S. officials pressed Algeria to convince the Polisario to lift the blockade on the MINURSO posts.87 Eventually, in April 2023, the Polisario agreed to provide “safe passage, on an exceptional and provisional basis” for convoys supplying the mission.88 It has kept renewing this “provisional” measure to this day.
U.S. Attempts to Contain the Risk
A Divided Europe under Pressure from Both Sides
While Morocco expected [its] traditionally close partner to adjust its stance, France calculated that any such change would undermine its ties with Algeria.
Algerian-Moroccan Competition in North Africa and the Sahel
[Algeria] accused Morocco of conspiring with Israel and the United Arab Emirates to isolate it diplomatically.
Despite diplomatic and military tensions, Algeria and Morocco have so far managed to avoid a direct military confrontation. When Algiers broke off relations with Rabat in 2021, it was not immediately clear what would happen. Though neither side wanted war, both indulged in inflammatory rhetoric that, together with the lack of communication channels, opened avenues for escalation. The reignited conflict in Western Sahara has also periodically threatened to bring Algeria and Morocco to blows. Three years after the diplomatic rupture, the situation is calmer. Both parties seem to have become better at resolving misunderstandings, thanks partly to the Biden administration’s timely interventions. Yet sporadic military incidents continue to threaten the precarious status quo. While the dispute goes beyond the disagreement over Western Sahara, it is in this theatre where the danger is greatest. The two countries could have come into conflict over three incidents: the killing of the Algerian truck drivers in Western Sahara, allegedly at the Moroccan military’s hands, in November 2021; MINURSO’s withdrawal from the buffer zone in 2022; and the Moroccan civilian’s death in a Polisario bombing in Smara in October 2023. In all these instances, the situation was defused through a blend of mutual restraint and external diplomatic intercession. Each of these episodes revealed something about the two countries’ respective red lines. When Morocco allegedly killed Algerian civilians in Western Sahara, Algeria threatened retaliation. Then, the Polisario killed a Moroccan civilian in Smara, with Rabat promising retribution. Neither followed through, but the other side understood the implicit risk of escalation and carefully avoided similarly provocative actions thereafter. Likewise, when MINURSO threatened to pull out, which might have led Moroccan troops to take over the buffer zone, coming face to face with Algerian forces along the border, there was a concerted effort to de-escalate, followed by a tacit commitment to avoid a similar scenario in the future. Though the 1991 ceasefire is over, both Rabat and Algiers want some of its arrangements to survive – in particular that MINURSO polices the buffer zone. (Morocco has kept its troops out of the zone since the Guerguerat road incident, though it now occupies the area where the standoff occurred.) As long as the war of attrition in Western Sahara remains within these limits, the risk of broader conflict seems manageable. While these emergent rules of the game (which in some respects reflect the parties’ international humanitarian law obligations) have lowered the risks, four factors could yet plunge the region into conflagration. First, young Sahrawi activists, increasingly dissatisfied with the Polisario’s attrition war strategy, are calling for a sharp escalation. This pressure is likely to stay high, as younger mid-level officials rise through the ranks and become more influential in decision-making.147 How this internal debate evolves could matter a great deal for regional stability, particularly if the Front were once again to threaten MINURSO’s resupply operations or strike a city in Morocco-controlled Western Sahara. Secondly, the arms race between Algeria and Morocco could offer either a temporary advantage or heighten threat perceptions, pushing one neighbour to inflict damage on the other. While the Algerian army remains superior overall to the Moroccan one, the latter has been acquiring equipment from the U.S. and Israel that could tilt the balance of power in its favour in a hypothetical war.148 Should either side think the equilibrium has shifted for good or try to pre-empt a shift, it could decide to strike in the expectation of winning a conflict limited in time and scope. While this risk is modest, both sides are concerned about it. A Moroccan analyst said Morocco was preparing for the possibility of armed conflict, while an Algerian researcher thought that “the risk of an escalation leading to war is there”.149
European states should … back the UN envoy’s efforts to restart negotiations over Western Sahara’s future.