Polisario Front Escalates Conflict: Shells Strike Moroccan Sahara City of Smara

"Advanced units of our heroic army carried out this Friday, June 27, a concentrated bombardment against the rear bases of the enemy in the Smara region," it is stated in a press release published by SPS, the Sahrawi press agency, adding that "this bombardment caused a state of panic and fear among the enemy soldiers and their cowardly leaders."

The note argues that the Moroccan army, with its state-of-the-art defense systems, failed to repel these attacks and that the Polisario will continue its military operations "until the invading occupiers are driven out of the country."

For their part, the Moroccan authorities have assured that the four detected projectiles caused no material or human damage, specifying that these shells fell in an uninhabited area near the facilities of the United Nations Mission for the Organization of a Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), far from any populated area or military installations.

Smara is one of the main cities of the Moroccan Sahara. It is located near the separation wall erected by the Moroccan armed forces to prevent attacks by Polisario militiamen, based in the eastern part of the Sahara and on Algerian soil, the main ally of the independence movement that does not digest the recent support of France and Spain for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara.