The Polisario Front is seeking to avoid being added to the United States' list of terrorist organizations—a list that includes groups such as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, both aligned with the Iranian regime. The separatist movement has previously been linked to these entities in Syria.
The head of MINURSO, Alexander Ivanko, has cast serious doubt on the Polisario's narrative of «war» in the Sahara, which it has promoted over the past four years. Speaking before the Security Council, the Russian diplomat highlighted the Front’s «inability» to alter the status quo through military action, while praising the restraint shown by the Royal Armed Forces (FAR).
Can Morocco succeed in having the Polisario Front listed as a terrorist organization by the United States? As tensions escalate in the Sahara and the Sahel, Rachid Benlabbah, a Moroccan academic and specialist in Sahara and Sahel studies at the University Institute of African, Euro-Mediterranean, and Ibero-American Studies in Rabat, examines the legal, political, and security dynamics of Morocco's diplomatic offensive against a militarized Polisario and a weakened Algeria.
Amid political shifts in the United States with the Republicans back in power, growing calls are emerging for a reassessment of U.S. policy on the Western Sahara conflict. Pressure is mounting to bolster Morocco’s position, with bold demands to reconsider the Polisario Front’s legitimacy and to terminate the UN’s MINURSO mission.
Setting aside the strong reactions to Spain and France’s support for Morocco’s position on the Sahara issue, Algeria and the Polisario, in a tone of resignation, merely «regretted» the Trump administration’s reaffirmation of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory.