The West is now more concerned about the threat posed by Iranian-made drones than only the conflict in Ukraine, especially in Africa. Moroccan officials recently expressed alarm about the drones being provided to the Polisario group, which is battling Moroccan soldiers in Western Sahara and is supported by Algeria.

And now, the British government at the highest level has formally acknowledged these concerns.

Western Sahara is a disputed region in the far south of Morocco that Spain abandoned in 1975. The Moroccans are currently working on a UN solution that would grant the region some autonomy in an effort to defuse the problem. It should be highlighted that the majority of nations support Rabat’s initiative.

Drone attacks, however, might halt all UN progress and transform the region back into a war zone, costing the Moroccans billions of dollars and halting the current 3 billion GBP in trade between the UK and Morocco.

Foreign Minister of the UK and friend of Morocco, James Cleverly, is becoming more and more alarmed by Iran’s actions, particularly its backing of the Polisario and its strong ties to Algeria. He recently recognized concerns raised by former Africa minister James Duddridge MP in the House of Commons on July 6th:

“May I ask the Foreign Secretary to look at Iran’s activities elsewhere? He has already mentioned the provision of Russian drones” asks Duddridge. “I hear rumours that Iran has also provided drones to the Polisario in southern Algeria, which could destabilise a very fragile peace with the Moroccans in Western Sahara”.

Cleverly’s response was more diplomatic and measured, but showed he was also concerned about the rumours of Iranian drones to such groups like the Polisario.

“My hon. Friend, who knows the continent of Africa and its politics incredibly well, is absolutely right to highlight the fact that Iranian malign activity is not restricted to its own near neighbourhood or, indeed, the United Kingdom” he says. “We look very carefully at the credible reporting of the support through military equipment not just to Russia in its attack against Ukraine, but to militia groups and other military groups in the region and across Africa. I can reassure him that we will take that into account”.

However, are the rumors founded on actual events or are they only online chitchat among Algerian commentators?

In truth, Iran and Algeria have long-standing diplomatic, economic, and military relations. Tehran has even acknowledged selling military drones to Algeria, albeit informally, which has stirred up some frenzy.

Omar Mansour, the former interior minister for Polisario, actually boasted that the group was receiving Iranian drones and would use them to attack Moroccan security forces last year.

The Polisario insurgents headquartered at the Tindouf refugee camp in Algeria have received military training and support from Iran via its Lebanese proxy militia Hezbollah, according to senior Moroccan officials. This assistance, which dates back to 2017, has long irritated Rabat.

Morocco severed diplomatic ties with Iran for the third time in May 2018 due to its backing of the Front. Iran seems to be stretching its muscles in the region recently thanks to a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, which gives Iran some leeway, and increased foreign oil earnings (after US secondary sanctions failed).

Moroccan sources claim that Iran recently sent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps soldiers to Algeria to help with Polisario rebels’ training.

The Defence Post reported that Moroccan officials gave information that showed how Algeria had made seldom utilized airstrips ideal for drone operations. These airstrips are located in remote regions of Algeria near the Moroccan border.

Officials from Morocco have also monitored air cargo shipments of military equipment from Iran to unidentified nations in North Africa. Drones, radar technology, and ballistic missile systems were all part of these shipments that were sent to Polisario forces via Algeria.

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Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the foreign minister of Iran, reaffirmed his nation’s willingness to reestablish diplomatic ties with Morocco and stressed the significance of promoting cordial relations amongst Muslim nations.

Including the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Muslim-friendly nation of Morocco, Abdollahian remarked, “We also welcome the development of relations and the normalization of ties with other regional and global Islamic countries.”

According to a report from Tehran Times on Thursday, the minister made the remarks during an address to ambassadors from Muslim nations on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha, a Muslim holiday also known as the Feast of Sacrifice in English.

Abdollahian emphasized the readiness of his nation to advance friendly relations with Muslim nations, give top priority to Islamic unity, and deal with local and international problems that have an effect on the Islamic world, such as the Palestinian cause and the Sudanese conflict.

Morocco severed diplomatic ties with Iran in May 2018 after accusing Iranian proxy Hezbollah of providing training and weapons to Polisario, a separatist movement that sought independence for Western Sahara and posed a threat to Morocco’s territorial integrity.

Iran and Polisario both refuted the allegations, but the Moroccan government offered proof that Hezbollah and the separatist front had collaborated.

Details of top Hezbollah operatives’ trips to Algeria, their interactions with Polisario representatives, and a list of those involved in these connections were included in the evidence.

Nasser Bourita, Morocco’s minister of foreign affairs, stated in an interview from 2018: “The file was carefully prepared, for weeks, on the basis of information gathered and cross-checked over several months.”

Morocco and Iran’s diplomatic connections were severed as a result of the charges that damaged their relationship.

In an interview with Independent Arabia from last year, Bourita highlighted that Morocco wants to have ties based on mutual respect and urged Iran to stop meddling in its neighbor’s domestic affairs and stop funding armed separatist organisations.

“Morocco has no enmity with Iran, we want relations of mutual respect and that Tehran no longer supports armed separatist groups,” he said.

Read Also: Swedish Ambassador to Morocco Claims Government Does Not Support Islamophobia

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According to an official from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, his country wants to enhance relations with Morocco.

“We aim to establish good relations with Morocco, which initiated the severance of relations with us for false grounds,” Mir Masoud Hosseinian, Director General of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Middle East and North Africa Department, said.

He went on to say that improving his country’s relations with Saudi Arabia will have a good impact on our relations with a vast number of Gulf countries and North Africa in the future.

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Iran has set itself up as an advocate for Separatist “Polisario” after having kept a low profile for three years since being caught in the act of plotting against Morocco.

Moroccan Foreign Minister Bourita then revealed the military-ideological alliance of Iran, Algeria, the Polisario and Hezbollah.

Three years after Morocco’s decision to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran; Iranian officials admitted that they were secretly plotting at the time with Algeria against the Kingdom of Morocco. The daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia reports, in its March 16th edition, that Iran has set itself up as an advocate for the Polisario separatists at the UN.

On the other hand, the Algerian Press Service (APS), reported that an adviser to Iran’s diplomatic mission to the UN has expressed his country’s position, supporting self-determination in the Moroccan Sahara, and calling on Morocco to “stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and contesting their regional security”.

It is necessary, he added while insisting on the bygone thesis of self-determination, for the international community to commit to implementing the UN recommendations on the Sahara. The exit of the Iranian representative shows that the astonishment of the Ayatollahs who had, three years ago, expressed their amazement at Morocco’s decision to suspend relations with their country, was only a decoy to hide the plots that ‘they fomented in Algeria against the Kingdom. Moroccan diplomacy then demonstrated, with supporting evidence, the ties that Iranian diplomats were forging in Algeria with the Polisario.

During a press conference, Nasser Bourita, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, also declared that the decision to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran was “a response to Iran’s involvement, via Hezbollah, in an alliance with the Polisario aimed at undermining the security of Morocco and its superior interests”.

Bourita then referred to irrefutable evidence he presented to his Iranian counterpart during his visit to Tehran. In details, the Moroccan minister revealed that this quadripartite alliance (Iran, Algeria, Hezbollah and Polisario) against Morocco had started in 2016, when a commission to support the “Saharawi people” had been set up in Lebanon under the aegis of Hezbollah.

This was followed by the visit of a Hezbollah military delegation to Polisario camps in Algeria. The turning point in this affair, Bourita explains, occurred on March 12th, 2017, when Hezbollah’s finance officer in Africa, Kacem Mohamed Tajeddine, was arrested at Mohammed V airport following an international arrest warrant launched against him by the United States, accusing him of money laundering and terrorism.

Since then, Bourita said, officials of the Lebanese Shiite party, subservient to Iran, have continued to utter threats against Morocco to “avenge one of their own”. They sent weapons and military cadres to train the Polisario members, in order to prepare armed attacks against Morocco. Suffice to say that the Iranian Ayatollahs were indeed involved in the arming and supervision of the separatists when Bourita denounced them in 2018. The Iranians then denied any involvement, despite irrefutable evidence.

It took Iran three years to publicly confess that they had indeed forged a hostile alliance in Morocco with the Polisario and Algeria, via Hezbollah.

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Today, March 4th, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, Nasser Bourita and his Jordanian counterpart H.E Ayman Safadi met to oversee the inauguration of Jordan’s General Consulate in Laayoune.

During the press conference, the two ministers touched upon a number of issues which affect the region among which is the situation in the Gulf.

In this regard, Safadi said, “We are proud of the historical relations between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Kingdom of Morocco with the Arab Gulf states”.

He also stressed the need to resolve tension surrounding the Gulf-Iranian matter, noting that “Arab countries do not want tense relations with Iran. All Arab countries want good healthy relations with Iran based on international law, non-interference in internal affairs and respect for good neighborliness.”

On a final note, the minister highlighted the importance of building regional relations on the basis of the aforementioned principles, assuring that there will be no reason for continuing tension if these principles are respected.

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Following a rocket attack on US embassy complex in Iraq, US President Donal Trump strongly warned Wednesday on Twitter that he would hold Iran Responsible for the possible death of any American.

He further stated that the Embassy in Baghdad got hit by several rockets and that the attack came from Iran.

Trump warned Iran that if one American is killed, he will hold Iran fully responsible and advised Iran to think it over.

On their part, Iraqi military reported that the attack was carried out by an outlawed group who fired eight rockets at the Green Zone in Baghdad which holds different Western embassies including the US embassy. Fortunately, the attack didn’t cause any fatalities.

However, US military are convinced that the attack was carried out by Iran-backed militants.

For his part, Central Command spokesman Navy Captain Bill Urban, said that the United States will hold Iran accountable for the deaths of any Americans that result from the work of these Iranian-backed rogue militia groups.

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Iran’s prominent nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was shot and killed on Friday while traveling along with his bodyguards east of Tehran. Fakhrizadeh’s car was attacked by a roadside ambush which confirms, according to Iran, that it was an assassination.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif condemned the assassination indicating that “this cowardice- with serious indications of Israeli role- shows desperate warmongering of the perpetrators”. Zarif also called on the international community, especially the EU to end their double standards and condemn this act of terrorism.

The Former CIA Director John O. Brennan described the attack in a tweet as “a criminal act and highly reckless.” Warning it may engender “lethal retaliation and a new round of regional conflict.” Brennan added that “the Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage and to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits.”

A former vice president Mohamad Ali Abtahi said that “the assassination of the martyr Fakhrizadeh is unfortunate” claiming that the attack was the result of the meeting that took place between Bin Salman, Pompeo and Netanyahu a few days ago in Saudi Arabia.

The assassination of Fakhrizadeh comes ten months after the United States killed the Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone attack in Iraq.

The killing of Fakhrizadeh, who was the head of Iran’s secret military program and wanted by the Mossad, spawned many demonstrations across Iran demanding revenge.

It is worth noting that this is not the first attack that targets Iranian scientists. Between 2010 and 2012 only, four Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated allegedly at the hands of Israeli terrorists.

This assassination heightens the tensions between the United States, which is suspected of having abetted Israel in this crime, and Iran. The conflict between the two countries have escalated after President Donald Trump abandoned the 2015 deal that Iran had concluded with the UK, France, Russia, China, Germany and US.

The Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Trita Parsi said is a thread on twitter that “if it turns out that Israel was behind the assassination, have no illusions about Netanyahu’s desire to drag the US into another endless war in the Middle East.”

On Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued threats of reprisal against the perpetrators of the assassination. Following these threats, Israel put its embassies around the world on alert.

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