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Operation Rattle
This operation, also known, with a certain dramatic flair, as the 1991 Tifariti offensive, marked the final military engagement in the protracted Western Sahara War. It was initiated by the Royal Moroccan Army against the Polisario Front, who were, and presumably still are, seeking independence for Western Sahara. A ceasefire, officially slated to take effect from 6 September 1991, had been agreed upon by both parties in July. Nevertheless, during August and the initial days of September 1991, the Royal Moroccan Army (RMA) launched a series of offensive operations. These were concentrated in the areas of Mehaires, Tifariti, Bir Lehlou, Mijek, and Agwanit. The outcome was grim: multiple Sahrawi civilian casualties, the complete destruction of Tifariti and Bir Lehlou, the deliberate poisoning of wells—a rather unsportsmanlike tactic—and the subsequent depopulation of the region, referred to as the Liberated Territories.
Operation Rattle
Between 4–5 August, Moroccan troops, supported by their air force, launched attacks on the towns of Tifariti, Mehaires, and Mijek. The infrastructure that had been meticulously built for the nomad population of the area, and indeed for the planned referendum, was systematically destroyed. This occurred even while a United Nations military experts mission was present in the zone, which speaks volumes about the seriousness with which certain parties regarded the peace process. POLISARIO sources claimed no military casualties, though on 13 August, they did report one Sahrawi fatality and another wounded during the attacks on Tifariti and Miyek. Later, Sahrawi sources from Tindouf mentioned three civilians sustaining injuries during these assaults.
On 4 August, a Moroccan Northrop F-5 aircraft was shot down by Sahrawi guerillas near Tifariti. The pilot, Captain Youssef Megzari, was captured. He later managed to escape from the Tindouf prison in February 2005, along with another prisoner of war. While the POLISARIO viewed these attacks as a blatant Moroccan attempt to derail the peace plan, the Moroccan official news agency offered a rather different perspective, describing the actions as a "cleansing operation in no-man's land." Their justification was to prevent the "infiltration of elements armed and trained to carry out terrorist attacks on the Moroccan Sahara."
From 22 August onwards, a second wave of attacks by Moroccan forces commenced, targeting Tifariti, Bir Lehlou, Mijek, and Agwanit. POLISARIO Front sources characterized these as a "massive terrestrial offensive" and decried the "systematic destruction of the water wells," a tactic that would undoubtedly lead to suffering. Conversely, MAP insisted that since early August, there had been "political operations of cleaning and searching in the no man's land," but they denied any operations of a "greater scale." On 25 August, POLISARIO officials announced that Moroccan troops had advanced into the town of Bir Lehlou, which served as the temporary capital of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. This advance forced hundreds of Sahrawi civilians to flee into the harshness of the desert. These sources also stated that Sahrawi forces were not offering any military resistance to the Moroccan offensive, citing their "respect to the date of September 6 marked by the UN peace plan for the ceasefire." However, they also issued a warning: if the attacks continued beyond the ceasefire date, "Sahrawis will be legitimated to exercise their self-defense right." Ultimately, they affirmed that at least twenty Sahrawi nomad civilians had perished, primarily from thirst, during the course of the Moroccan offensive.
On 27 August, the then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar expressed his confidence in the maintenance of the ceasefire date, while seemingly dismissing the POLISARIO's reports regarding the attacks. The Moroccan press, predictably, reacted by attacking Pérez de Cuellar, accusing him of a lack of neutrality and of creating confusion. Meanwhile, the Royal Moroccan Air Force bombed Tifariti once more, resulting in the deaths of at least five civilians, injuring twenty, and destroying the town's infrastructure, according to Hash Ahmed, the POLISARIO representative in Madrid at the time. He further added that ten thousand refugees in the Tifariti region were fleeing, and a hundred had vanished. On 29 August, Bachir Mustapha Sayed, the POLISARIO representative responsible for relations with the MINURSO, declared that the Moroccan troops were retreating towards the Moroccan Wall.
Ceasefire
A ceasefire between the Polisario Front and Morocco, which has been monitored by MINURSO (the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara), has been in effect since 6 September 1991. This was accompanied by the promise of a referendum on independence the following year. One can only hope it was more successful than this particular operation.