For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has engaged in asymmetric clashes with regional rivals across the Middle East, supporting foreign terrorist guerrilla groups with manpower, icing on the cake, equipment and training. military.
In recent years, Iran has extended and deepened its influence in Africa, especially in the Sahel and the Maghreb. In countries like Senegal, the Central African Republic and Nigeria. There he reproduced his Middle Eastern manual by arming and training Shiite rebel groups. Thus, Iran is sneakily gaining a foothold in a strategic and resource-rich area adjacent to vital Western shipping lanes in the Atlantic Ocean.
That said, Iranian influence in these regions is spreading and, taking advantage of Algeria’s complicity, it could have greater geopolitical consequences in the Saharan region of northwest Africa, ” with growing support for state and non-state opponents in Morocco, Iran is seeking to undermine a staunch Western ally that serves as the bedrock of stability in a troubled neighborhood “, writes Cuisinier Longo in “The Defense post“ an American platform.
But will continue this former journalist and columnist for CNN, “ the most acute concern for Morocco is the supply of Iranian attack drones to the polisario front“.
This question was moreover recently invited to the Lower House of the British Parliament which ruled on the sanctions to be taken against Iran for its “various services rendered” to international terrorism from which the United Kingdom has suffered and continues to suffer.
While welcoming the measures taken against Iran, the Conservative MP Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) mentioned ” the supply of drones to the polisario in southern Algeria, which could destabilize a very fragile peace with the Moroccans in the Sahara +occidental+, an area governed by the UN“.
And the ex-editorialist of CNN, to support these statements by supporting: ” Ies separatists who benefit from the sustained aid of Algeria, a regional rival and antagonist of Morocco, are waging a military struggle to detach the Sahara from Morocco”.
Referring to the remarks of the ambassador permanent representative of Morocco to the UN, Omar Hilale, he will write: ” IMorocco’s permanent representative to the United Nations has repeatedly highlighted drone transfers via Algeria and warned that Morocco will react “appropriately”.
Iran has long-standing economic and military ties with Algeria, and Tehran has admitted selling military drones to Algiers which should land with separatists who would deploy them to target the Royal Armed Forces (FAR). Algiers has, moreover, for this purpose, optimized landing strips little used for the operations of drones of its toddler in regions near its borders with Morocco.
The growing support of the despotic regime of the mullahs to the senile regime of the military in Algiers and to the Polisario threatens not only Morocco, but also the stability of the region in the broad sense, right down to the depths of the Continent.
Morocco has always been a strategic bulwark in North Africa, a moderate Islamic country with a rapidly growing economy and deep economic relations with its African brothers. These economic and political foundations underpin Morocco’s emergence as a reliable strategic link between the United States/Europe and the entire African continent.
Moroccan authorities also tracked shipments of military equipment by air from Iran to unspecified countries in North Africa. These shipments, delivered to Polisario fighters via Algeria, included drones, radar equipment and ballistic missile systems. It is not with this kind of equipment that we will compensate for the cereal shortage in these regions.
The Kingdom had also denounced how Iran had used its Lebanese militia by proxy, Hezbollah in this case, to provide training and military support to the Polisario separatists, based in the refugee or sequestered camps of Tindouf. in Algeria.
This support in men, equipment and training, the beginning of which dates back to 2017 and which had been the cause of the third rupture of diplomatic relations between Rabat and Tehran, continues without firing a shot today.
Cook Longo will conclude his “post“ by saying: ” VSIranian efforts to destabilize Morocco are consistent with Iran’s antagonism towards Israel”.