The April 2026 arrest of Shamim Mafi at Los Angeles International Airport, charged with brokering a $72.5 million Iranian arms deal to Sudan, exposed more than a single transaction. It opened a window onto a continental network the IRGC has been building for four decades, one that now spans North Africa, the Horn, the Sahel, and southern Africa.

In North Africa, the IRGC has applied its proxy model to the Western Sahara conflict. The Polisario Front, formally the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro, is an Algerian-backed separatist movement founded in 1973. The group claims sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory Morocco has administered since Spain’s withdrawal in 1975. A UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991 ended open guerrilla warfare, but a promised independence referendum was never held.

Today, the Polisario controls roughly 20 percent of the territory from desert camps in Tindouf, Algeria. It operates a self-declared government-in-exile called the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The United States recognized Western Sahara as Moroccan territory in 2020.

Iran’s entry transformed this Cold War-era territorial dispute into a live proxy conflict. In 2018, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita accused Iran and Hezbollah of training and arming Polisario fighters through the Iranian embassy in Algeria. He stated that Hezbollah had supplied the group with SAM-9, SAM-11, and Strela surface-to-air missiles. The allegations prompted Morocco to sever diplomatic ties with Tehran.

The relationship has since deepened into direct military deployment. Regional and European security officials told the Washington Post that Iran trained hundreds of Polisario fighters who were later detained by Syria’s new security forces after fighting alongside the Assad regime. Among those detained were an Algerian army general and approximately 500 soldiers. Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa rejected Algerian requests for their release, stating that all captured fighters would face prosecution for war crimes and crimes against civilians.

Fahed al-Masri, head of Syria’s National Salvation Front, told Yedioth Ahronoth that 200 Polisario fighters trained by Iran had been deployed to sensitive military positions near the Israeli border. In 2022, Polisario Interior Minister Omar Mansour publicly disclosed that fighters were training in the assembly and operation of armed drones. Open-source weapons analysts also confirmed that imagery posted on Polisario social media channels showed Iranian-type munitions.

The episode exposed an operational triangle linking Algiers, the Tindouf camps, and the Syrian front. It confirmed that the Polisario functions not merely as a separatist movement, but as a deployable component of Iran’s Axis of Resistance. Senator Ted Cruz introduced legislation in March 2026 to designate the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Cruz stated that Iran was attempting to turn the Polisario into "the Houthis of West Africa.”

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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