Finland Daily,a digital Finnish paper,warned of the connivance between the Algeria-backed Polisario separatists and Iran as a “major security threat to Europe.”
“North Africa,especially Algeria and Libya,has become a hotspot for illicit trade in arms,drugs,and human trafficking,activities that are commonly linked to Iranian proxies and now increasingly to the Polisario as well,” Dr. Ari Petäjävaara wrote on Finland Daily.
Petäjävaara echoed calls for designating the Polisario as a terrorist group,after the Washington Post confirmed the separatist group had sent its members to be trained by Iran in Syria.
He alerted Iran was trying to export proxy warfare to North Africa by relying on the Polisario.
“Iran’s relationship with the Polisario Front reflects a familiar pattern: exploiting marginalized,ideologically compatible,and militarized non-state actors to project influence far from its borders,much like it has done in Lebanon,Iraq,Syria,and Yemen,” the columnist said.
“In 2022,a Polisario Front representative claimed that Iran would supply the group with kamikaze drones,” he recalled.
Meanwhile,Europe should act or else risk the fallout of Polisario’s destabilizing acts.
The case of Omar Ould Hamma,involved in the 2009 abduction of three Spanish humanitarian workers in Mauritania,is one example of the Front’s ties with terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),he said.
Iran has found in Algeria and in the Polisario an ally after the setbacks it suffered in the Middle East. The Polisario is adopting terrorist tactics targeting civilians,firing projectiles onto residential areas in Smara,killing one and injuring three in 2023.
“The Polisario is no longer a mere separatist movement. It increasingly mirrors the profile of Iranian proxies: ideologically radicalized,regionally embedded,transnationally connected,and strategically useful to Tehran,” he said.
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