Written by Khalid Ibrahim Khaled
The leader of the Polisario Mohamed Abdelaziz is boiling up with anger against his foreign minister Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, well-informed sources in Tindouf said. The cause of this anger is a slip of the tongue. Ould Salek actually revealed the existence of close contacts between the separatist front and the armed groups occupying Northern Mali.Commenting on the case of the three western hostages who were held by Al-Qaeda offshoot MUJAO (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) and who were released lately, Ould Salek said the leaders of the Sahrawi front “knew exactly where the hostages were detained in Mali”. These Comments have seriously embarrassed the whole Polisario leadership, all the more so as they were made by the foreign minister of the Polisario republic, Ould Salek, who certainly knew what he was talking about.
Pushing the button even harder, he gave details on the role played by the Polisario in the case of the hostages and asserted that “the exchange of information on the health of the three international aid workers and on their place of detention was permanent”.
That was enough to spread disarray within the Polisario. Especially so as several reports of Western intelligence services and media had established the existence of connections between the Polisario and the armed groups roaming in Northern Mali.
The collateral damages of this blunder did not stop there. They also embroiled the Algerian DRS, the terrible Algerian military intelligence service. It is common knowledge that it is the DRS which pulls the strings in the Polisario camps, located on the Algerian territory. The Polisario cannot possibly “exchange information” on the hostages nor travel between the camps and Northern Mali without the approval of the DRS. This explains the disarray of the Polisario and the anger of Mohamed Abdelaziz against Ould Salek.
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