Moroccan Army Launches Operation in Western Sahara Border Zone

Morocco announced Friday that its troops had launched an operation in no man's land on the southern border of the Western Sahara to end "provocations" by the pro-independence Polisario Front.

Rabat said its troops would "put a stop to the blockade" of trucks travelling between Moroccan-controlled areas of the disputed territory and neighboring Mauritania, and "restore free circulation of civilian and commercial traffic."

The Polisario Front warned on Monday that it would regard a three-decade-old ceasefire with Morocco as over if Rabat moved troops or civilians into the buffer zone on the Mauritanian border.