Polisario says three members killed in Western Sahara, including son of former leader

Three members of the Front Polisario have been killed in Western Sahara, including Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz, the son of the movement’s former long-time leader Mohamed Abdelaziz.

The Polisario announced the deaths on Sunday 7 June and declared three days of mourning. It said Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz had died during a military operation near the Moroccan defence wall in Western Sahara.

The movement did not give full details of the circumstances of the operation or identify all those killed.

Several regional and international outlets reported that the deaths followed a drone strike attributed to Morocco. Rabat has not publicly confirmed carrying out the attack.

Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz was 37. He was a member of the Polisario’s National Secretariat and commanded the First Reserve Brigade.

He had studied international relations in Algeria and was elected to the National Secretariat at the Polisario’s 16th Congress in 2024.

His death carries political weight inside the movement. Several reports described him as one of the figures seen as a possible successor to Brahim Ghali, the Polisario’s current secretary-general and president of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

His father, Mohamed Abdelaziz, was one of the central figures in the history of the Polisario. He led the movement for decades and served as president of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic until his death in 2016.

The circumstances of Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz’s death remain contested. The Polisario said he was killed while leading an attack near the defence wall. Moroccan-aligned accounts described a drone strike on vehicles inside the buffer zone. A former Polisario member quoted by Yabiladi questioned the official Polisario account, arguing that a commander in his position would not normally be expected to take part directly in a front-line operation.

His death comes at a sensitive moment for the Western Sahara file. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has been in the region as part of efforts to keep open a diplomatic track between Morocco and the Polisario.

Western Sahara has been disputed since Spain withdrew from the territory in 1975. Morocco controls most of the territory and considers it part of the kingdom. The Polisario, backed by Algeria, seeks an independent Sahrawi state.

A UN-brokered ceasefire agreed in 1991 held for nearly three decades before the Polisario said it had ended its commitment to the truce in 2020, after Moroccan forces moved in the Guerguerat area near the Mauritanian border.

Since then, the conflict has continued at lower intensity, with repeated claims of military operations around the Moroccan-built defence wall that separates Moroccan-controlled areas from territory the Polisario describes as liberated zones.

Morocco has promoted an autonomy plan under its sovereignty as the basis for a settlement. The Polisario insists on the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination, including the option of independence.

The diplomatic balance has shifted in recent years as the United States, France, Spain and several other states have moved closer to Morocco’s autonomy proposal.