‘Morocco Not Getting Drawn Into War With Algeria’

Rabat, Nov 5 (TNA) Morocco is not getting drawn into a war with Algeria, said a Moroccan source informed in reaction to Algiers' news of the death of three of its nationals in a bombing in Western Sahara attributed to the Moroccan army.

"If Algeria wants war, Morocco does not. Morocco will never be unleashed in a spiral of violence and regional destabilization", reports said while deploring "gratuitous accusations against Morocco”.

"If Algeria wishes to drag the region into war, with provocations and threats, Morocco will not follow," insisted the same source, who requested anonymity, as per news reports.

"Morocco has never targeted and will never target Algerian citizens, whatever the circumstances and provocations," she said. In a statement, the Algerian presidency declared the assassination of three Algerian citizens on November 1 during a bombing of their trucks on the road ensuring the connection between Nouakchott (Mauritania) and Ouargla (southern Algeria).

According to the press release, "several factors point to the Moroccan occupation forces in Western Sahara as having committed, with powerful weapons, this cowardly murder".

The Algerian presidency does not specify the exact location where this bombardment took place. But according to the Algerian specialist site menadefense.net, Algerian truckers were "killed at Bir Lahlou in Western Sahara".

Western Sahara, considered a "non-autonomous territory" by the UN in the absence of a final settlement, has for decades opposed Rabat, which controls nearly 80% of this vast desert territory, to the Polisario Front, claiming it a referendum of self-determination and supported by Algeria.