Sand War

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The Sand War occurred along the Algerian-Moroccan border in October 1963, and was a Moroccan attempt to claim the Tindouf area and other parts of western Algeria as the eastern provinces of "Greater Morocco" ^[1].

1 Background
2 The War
3 Results
4 References

[edit] Background

Morocco's monarchy had long argued that these areas were historically Moroccan, and had additionally been surrendered to the kingdom in return for Moroccan support by the Algerian nationalist leader Ferhat Abbas, during the course of the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62). Whether true or not, Abbas had just been purged from the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) government by a military-backed coalition led by radical leader Ahmad Ben Bella, and held no sway over the newborn state's political decisions. The Algerians thus recognized neither Morocco's historical nor its political claims. Instead, they perceived the Moroccan demands as an attempt to infringe the country's hard-won independence and pressure it when it was at its weakest (Algeria was still reeling from the enormous damage caused by its war against French colonialism, and the government scarcely held control over its entire territory). Tension escalated, as neither side wanted to back down.

[edit] The War

Claims by Morocco over the sovereignty of some parts of Algeria led to tensions between the two countries. Before the French colonization in the 19th century, parts of southern and western Algeria belonged to Morocco ^[2]. This led to skirmishes along the border and eventually escalated into a full-blown confrontation, with intense fighting around the oasis towns of Tindouf and Figuig. The Algerian army, just formed from the guerrilla ranks fo the FLN's Armé de Libération Nationale (ALN) was still geared towards asymmetric warfare, and had little high-powered equipment ^[3]. They were still battle-ready and held tens of thousands of experienced veterans, and strengthening the armed forces had been a top priority for the military-dominated post-war government. On the other hand, while being modern, western-equipped Moroccan army was superior on the battlefield[1], it did not manage to penetrate into Algeria. The war stalemated with the intervention of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Arab league and it was broken off after approximately three weeks. The OAU eventually managed to arrange a formal cease-fire on February 20, 1964 ^[4]. A peace agreement was then made after Arab League mediation, and a demilitarized zone instituted ^[5], but hostilities simmered.

[edit] Results

The Sand War laid the foundations for a lasting and often intensely hostile rivalry between Morocco and Algeria, exacerbated by the differences in political outlook between the conservative Moroccan monarchy and the revolutionary, pan-Arabist Algerian military government ^[6]. Final border demarcation in the Tindouf area would not be reached until many years later, in a negotiation process stretching from 1969 to 1972, and with Algeria offering Morocco shares in the iron ore earnings from Tindouf as a quid pro quo for recognition of its borders.

Many have argued that the Sand War and its bitter legacy was a factor in the attitudes of both Morocco and Algeria towards the (still incomplete) decolonization of Spanish Sahara in the early 1970s. In 1975, Morocco invaded and subsequently annexed this territory, now known as Western Sahara, while Algeria at the same time began backing an independence-minded Sahrawi guerrilla organization, Polisario Front.