While the Mauritanian people welcomed the reopening of the Guerguerate border crossing and flow of goods and people, several Algerian and Polisario media have relayed in unison the analysis of a Mauritanian political scientist ensuring that Mauritania would have been angered by Morocco’s military intervention.
In December 1988, the Polisario shot two American planes on a locust-spraying mission to Morocco. The first plane was wrecked between the Mauritanian border and the sand wall and the second one landed in a Sidi Ifni airfield.
After announcing bombings, killed FAR soldiers and others taken prisoners, several Polisario and Algerian newspapers have claimed «the military enlistment» of Sub-Saharans by Morocco, or even «the death of an Emirati officer in a bombardment in the Sahara».