"The Sahara autonomy plan will ultimately prevail under the Kingdom’s leadership and despite concerted maneuvers by Polisario and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to mortgage the future of an entire region," said Elizabeth Blackney, in an article entitled: "From the Arab to Sahara Winter."

Journalist Elizabeth Blackney

Given the promise of the Moroccan autonomy initiative, the 'Huffington Post' opposes the threat posed by Polisario and AQIM in North Africa and the Sahel, denouncing the embezzlement of humanitarian aid by separatist leaders, "ignoring the needs of the people they claim to protect."

Collusion between these two groups is manifested in "illegal and often criminal activities," they carry out in Mali and Mauritania, causing the greatest concern of the international community, says the US newspaper.

The 'Huffington Post' adds in this context, a recent study by the U.S. think-tank Carnegie Endowment for Peace which warned that this collusion between Polisario and AQIM carries a "profound instability throughout the region."

The conjunction of interests between AQIM and Polisario is the matrix of a terrorist organization with the "incalculable" consequences for stability and security of a geographic area from the Maghreb to wide expanses of the Sahel, the report warns.

"The AQIM franchises in the Sahel region are working steadily to consolidate their links with drug traffickers in the Tindouf camps they have infiltrated a large scale by recruiting frustrated and disillusioned youth," says the document.

The study of this prestigious think-tank based in Washington notes in this regard that "Sahrawi youth involvement in drug trafficking in the region has become a disturbing reality," noting that this youth is "gradually socially isolated, lacking direction, and has no perspective to come. "

The 'Huffington Post' notes, moreover, that any support to the Polisario is in fact a "support of an organization that works actively to embezzle aid to an impoverished population persisting cynically to extend its suffering. "

- News and events on Western Sahara issue / Corcas -