Morocco World News
Morocco World News
Rabat, September 21, 2012
The London-based European Council of Foreign Relations highlighted the presence of Polisario elements within extremist groups involved in criminal activities in the Sahel region.
In a report on relations between the European Union and North Africa after the events that shook the region in 2011, the Council noted that these groups are increasingly involved in many criminal activities including kidnapping and drug trafficking.
The report also described “endemic chaos” rooted in vast areas of the Sahel. The situation has been exacerbated by the unprecedented availability of arms as a result of the demise of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Islamist activists involved in the Algerian civil war and later on with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Polisario guerrillas, and other refugees settled in the Tindouf camps in western Algeria.
The European Council on Foreign Relations went on to state that “these groupings are increasingly active in a range of criminal activities, from the kidnapping of westerners to drug smuggling (notably South American cocaine heading from West Africa to Europe.”
It stressed that these developments have deepened significantly as a result of the lack of stability in the Sahel region, pointing out that the process of traveling in search of pasture and climate change have contributed to the breakdown of the existing borders in the region, which were porous to begin with.
