Republican Senator Ted Cruz proposes that the US declare the Polisario Front a terrorist organization

In the document, to which EL ESPAÑOL has had access, it is specified that “the term Polisario Front refers to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro, founded on May 10, 1973, or any successor organization.”

The objective is to force the State Department to formally examine this designation based on Polisario’s collaboration with Iranian groups already classified as terrorists.

It would entail severe sanctions for the legal representative of the Sahrawi people, in accordance with the US Immigration and Nationality law, such as exclusion from the international financial system, travel restrictions and freezing of assets.

“It will ensure that the strongest US anti-terrorism sanctions can be used to counter these threats,” according to its promoters.

Just ten days after introducing the bill in the Senate, on March 23, Republican Senator David McCormick and former CEO of Bridewater Associates between 2020 and 2022, one of the largest investment funds in the world, officially supported the initiative.

In addition, this text is added to the bill HR4119 in the House of Representatives, which in June 2025, Joe Wilson y Jimmy Panettasupported by six members of Congress, managed to introduce with a similar objective. In this way, both chambers of Congress now have a bill directed against the Polisario Front.

Requires the preparation of a detailed Secretary of State report on sensitive areas such as joint military operations, weapons transfers, including drones and their components, and intelligence activities.

Specifically, “each required report shall include a determination of whether the Polisario Front provided or received from an Iranian-affiliated terrorist organization, including through intermediaries: armed support in military operations; weapons systems, including portable, single-use firearms; unmanned aerial vehicles, including commercial component parts for such vehicles; systems, platforms or components designed to detect, track, attack or destroy aerial targets; or military intelligence, including surveillance data, targeting information, signals or human intelligence, and any derived analysis from such sources, whether provided raw or processed.”

Regarding the deadlines for submitting the report, “no later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this law, annually thereafter, the Secretary of State will present a report to the relevant congressional committees on the cooperation between the Polisario Front and terrorist organizations affiliated with Iran during the period specified in the subsection,” the bill states.

The legislative initiative emerged in Senate hearings on security in North Africa and the Sahel last February. Then, Ted Cruz assured that “Iran is trying to transform the Polisario Front into the Houthis of West Africa to threaten the national security of the United States and our allies.”

Likewise, the Texas senator assured that “the Polisario Front collaborates with Iranian terrorist groups, receives drones from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and transports weapons to the region on behalf of the Iranian regime.”

Morocco benefits

It must be remembered that Morocco broke its relations with Iran in May 2018 due to Hezbollah’s military support for the Polisario Front. In addition, Rabat has designated the Rabouni refugee camps, on the Moroccan-Algerian border, as an Iranian forward operating base.

In fact, Morocco has been pressing in international meetings and forums on “the rapprochement between Iran and Algeria with the aim of training the army of the Polisario Front”, with which the neighboring country has maintained a low-intensity war since the breakdown of the ceasefire in November 2020.

Their goal is to include the Polisario Front on the international list of terrorist groups and expel it from the African Union.

For its part, the US administration included in the 2023 budget a proposal for military spending and aid to support the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Sudan, considering that they are within the range of missiles and drones used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or militias related to the ayatollah regime.

This has cost Morocco $6 billion, which “should be used to establish integrated air defense networks between these countries and Israel, specifically to counter missile and unmanned aerial vehicle attacks by Iran and its related militias.”

By “affiliated militias,” the United States refers to Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and southwestern Algeria, where Hezbollah supposedly has support and where, according to Morocco, it “trains the Polisario.”

In March 2022, the foreign ministers of Morocco, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Israel met in the Negev Desert to discuss the Iranian threat to the Middle East and North Africa region.

Likewise, at the meeting of the Global Coalition against ISIS, held in Marrakech in May 2022, they exposed the link between separatism and terrorism, alluding to a connection between the Lebanese Shiites of Hezbollah and the Polisario.