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Organisation of militias fighting for Moroccan independence from France and Spain
The
Army of Liberation
(
Moroccan Arabic
:
??? ???????
,
romanized:
Jish Ette?rir
;
Berber languages
:
Aserdas Uslelli
) was an organization of various loosely united militias fighting for the independence of
Morocco
from the
French
-
Spanish
coalition.
It was founded in 1955 as an attempt to organise the various factions of rural Moroccan armed resistance that swept the country as a result of the assassination of
Farhat Hached
and the exile of king
Mohamed ben Youssef
.
[1]
Abdelkrim El Khattabi
played an important role in the instigation of the army, through commanders such as
Abbas Messaadi
and
Sellam Amezian
.
History
[
edit
]
Ifni War
[
edit
]
In 1956, units of the Army, which started to move its staff from North
Spanish Morocco
, began infiltrating
Ifni
and other enclaves of Spanish Morocco, as well as
Spanish Sahara
(today
Western Sahara
), to claim them as being part of Morocco. Initially, they received important backing from the Moroccan government. In the Spanish Sahara, the Army rallied
Sahrawi
tribes along the way, and triggered a
large-scale rebellion
. In early 1958, the Moroccan king reorganized the Army of Liberation units fighting in the Spanish Sahara as the
"Saharan Liberation Army"
[
citation needed
]
, also known as 'the Southern Liberation Army' (Armee de Liberation du Sud), sometimes abbreviated as ALS. The ALS had prestigious leaders such as
Abderrahmane Youssoufi
[
citation needed
]
,
Fqih Basri
and
Bensaid Ait Idder
.
The revolt in the Spanish Sahara was put down in 1958 by a joint French and Spanish offensive. Upon their retreat, the guerrilla fighters were, surprisingly, hindered by the regular Moroccan Army, which allowed Spanish and French forces to neutralize them.
[2]
[3]
The
King of Morocco
then signed
an agreement
with the Spanish, where Spain returned the province of Tarfaya (until that agreement, part of Spanish Sahara) to Morocco. Part of the Army of Liberation was absorbed into the Moroccan armed forces.
Morocco sees the Army of Liberation battles in Western Sahara, and the fighting under Moroccan flag of Sahrawis as a proof of Western Sahara's loyalty to the Moroccan crown, whereas sympathizers to the
Polisario Front
view it only as an anti-colonial war directed against Spanish. Sahrawi veterans of the Army of Liberation today exist on both sides of the Western Sahara conflict, and both the Kingdom of Morocco and the
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
celebrate it as part of their political history. Some parents of founder members of Polisario were members of the Army of Liberation
[
citation needed
]
, most notably the father of
Mohammed Abdelaziz
the president of
Polisario
and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, who is living in Morocco and is a member of
CORCAS
.
[
citation needed
]
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
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Leadership
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Branches
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Former commanders
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Operations and history
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Equipment
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Territories
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South America
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- New Granada
(
Colombia
,
Ecuador
,
Panama
,
Venezuela, part of Guyana
, a northernmost portion of Brazilian Amazon)
- Peru
(Peru,
Acre
,
Chile
)
- Rio de la Plata
(
Argentina
,
Paraguay
,
Charcas
(Bolivia),
Banda Oriental
(Uruguay),
Misiones Orientales
,
Malvinas
)
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Administrative subdivisions
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