Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz, seen as potential successor to Brahim Ghali, killed

The Polisario Front has announced the death of Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz, the son of its former leader Mohamed Abdelaziz, along with two other members, in a strike reportedly carried out by a Moroccan drone in the buffer zone east of the security wall. According to the Front, the three men were leading attacks against Moroccan army positions at the time of the strike.

Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz had been regarded as one of the leading contenders to succeed the Front’s current secretary-general, Brahim Ghali, owing to his rapid rise through Polisario ranks in recent years and his appointment to several influential leadership positions.

During the Front’s 16th congress, held in January 2023 at the Dakhla camp in Algeria, he was elected to the Polisario’s General Secretariat as part of a 28-member leadership body. He also joined the Defense Committee, one of the organization’s most influential structures responsible for shaping its military strategy.

In 2024, Brahim Ghali appointed him commander of the so-called «Reserve Army», replacing Mohamed Lamine Ould El Bouhali, in a move widely interpreted as a sign of his growing influence within the Front’s military apparatus.

Earlier, in October 2013, his father, Mohamed Abdelaziz, had entrusted him with command of one of the Polisario’s «gendarmerie» units, an elite formation considered better equipped and resourced than several other units affiliated with the Front’s armed wing.