In February 1985, the Polisario Front guerilla shot down a German survey-and-research airplane on its way home after an Antarctica expedition.
The 14th extraordinary session of the African Union «Silencing the Guns» Summit, held by videoconference, drew opposite reactions. Morocco and the Polisario were focused on the speech of the South African president who chairs the AU.
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.