| Attack on Tichla | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Western Sahara War | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Polisario |  Mauritania | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Mohamed Abdelaziz | Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | 90 to 150 73 prisoners | ||||||||
The Attack on Tichla took place on July 12, 1979, in the town of Tichla, in Western Sahara. It marked the final engagement between Mauritania and Polisario before the peace treaty in Algiers and Mauritania's withdrawal from the Western Sahara War.
On 10 July 1978, facing a severe economic crisis due to the cost of the war, the regime of Moktar Ould Daddah was overthrown by Colonel Moustapha Ould Mohamed Saleck and his National Recovery Military Committee (CMRN), later renamed the National Salvation Military Committee (CMSN). [1] Immediately after this coup d'état, the Polisario declared a unilateral ceasefire, assuming that Mauritania intended to peacefully withdraw from the conflict. [2] However, mindful of maintaining his country's alliance with Morocco, negotiations between Mauritania and the Polisario stalled. Meanwhile, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly overthrew Moustapha Ould Mohamed Saleck's government [3] The attack occurs on the eve of the Organization of African Unity conference in Monrovia, where a resolution regarding the Western Sahara war is expected to emerge. [4]
On 12 July 1979, the Polisario broke the ceasefire and captured the town of Tichla, causing heavy casualties among the Mauritanian garrison. [5]
Following this attack, Mauritania threatened to seek assistance from France and Morocco in the face of potential further attacks. The Polisario Front declared that any Mauritanian retaliation would prompt them to launch new attacks, extending beyond Tichla into undisputed Mauritanian territory. [6] Alarmed by the prospect of continuing the war, Mauritania, nonetheless, signed a positive vote on the referendum requested by the Polisario and endorsed by the heads of state of the Organisation of African Unity. [7] [4] On July 29, 1979, the Prime Minister of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), Mohamed Lamine Ould Ahmed, announces the release of the 73 Mauritanian soldiers captured during the attack. This response came following a request made on behalf of the ad hoc committee of the Organization of African Unity on Western Sahara by the heads of state of Mali and Nigeria. The release followed that of the Mauritanian prefect of Tichla, Abdoullahi Ould Mokhtar Ould Kabd, who was also captured during the attack. [8]
Following the announcement of the release of the Mauritanian soldiers, Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, the Mauritanian Prime Minister, declared that his country has chosen to definitively withdraw from this "fratricidal and unjust war," emphasizing that Mauritania has no territorial claims over Western Sahara. [7] On August 5, 1979, Mauritanian President Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly signs a peace treaty in Algiers, officially confirming the withdrawal of Mauritanian troops from the Río de Oro region, which is immediately annexed by the Moroccan army. [9] [10]
Moktar Ould Daddah was a Mauritanian politician who led the country after it gained its independence from France. Moktar served as the country's first Prime Minister from 1957 to 1961 and as its first President of Mauritania, a position he held from 1960 until he was deposed in a military coup d'etat in 1978.
Col. Mustafa Ould Salek was the president of Mauritania from 1978 to 1979.
Col. Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla was the head of state of Mauritania from 4 January 1980 to 12 December 1984.
Tiris al-Gharbiyya was the name for the area of Western Sahara under Mauritanian control between 1975 and 1979.
Ain Ben Tili is a small village-fort in northeast Mauritania, on the border with Western Sahara. It is part of the Tiris Zemmour region.
The foreign relations of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania have, since 1960, been dominated by the issues of the Spanish Sahara and the recognition of its independence by its neighbours, particularly Morocco. Mauritania's foreign relations are handled by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, who is currently Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug.
Since the end of the 1980s, several members of POLISARIO have decided to discontinue their military or political activities for the Polisario Front. Most of them returned from the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria to Morocco, among them a few founder members and senior officials. Some of them are now actively promoting Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which Morocco considers its Southern Provinces. Their individual reasons to stop working for POLISARIO, as reported in the media, vary, but include allegations of human rights violations, monopolization and abuse of power, blackmailing and sequestering the refugee population in Tindouf, and squandering foreign aid. They also claim POLISARIO is controlled by the government of Algeria and as one former member of POLISARIO put it, "[was] a group of Moroccan students who were urging the Spanish colonizer to leave and who had never claimed independence or the separation from motherland Morocco."
The Military Committee for National Salvation was a military Government of Mauritania that took power in the 1979 coup d'état. It was installed by Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, Ahmed Ould Bouceif and fellow officers, in an internal regime/military coup on April 6, 1979, removing Colonel Mustafa Ould Salek of the Military Committee for National Recovery (CMRN) from effective power. He was officially replaced by Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly in June 1979. Haidalla would later emerge as the main military strongman and go on to assume full powers in the 1980 coup d'état, only to be deposed by Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in the December 1984 coup d'état.
Greater Mauritania is a term for the Mauritanian irredentist claim that generally includes the Western Sahara and other Sahrawi-populated areas of the western Sahara Desert. The term was initially used by Mauritania's first President, Mokhtar Ould Daddah, as he began claiming the territory then known as Spanish Sahara even before Mauritanian independence in 1960.
The Western Sahara War was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco from 1975 to 1991, being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords, by which it transferred administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, but not sovereignty. In late 1975, the Moroccan government organized the Green March of some 350,000 Moroccan citizens, escorted by around 20,000 troops, who entered Western Sahara, trying to establish a Moroccan presence. While at first met with just minor resistance by the Polisario Front, Morocco later engaged a long period of guerrilla warfare with the Sahrawi nationalists. During the late 1970s, the Polisario Front, desiring to establish an independent state in the territory, attempted to fight both Mauritania and Morocco. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict after signing a peace treaty with the Polisario Front. The war continued in low intensity throughout the 1980s, though Morocco made several attempts to take the upper hand in 1989–1991. A cease-fire agreement was finally reached between the Polisario Front and Morocco in September 1991. Some sources put the final death toll between 10,000 and 20,000 people.
In December 1984, Haidallah was deposed by Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, who, while retaining tight military control, relaxed the political climate. Ould Taya moderated Mauritania's previous pro-Algerian stance, and re-established ties with Morocco during the late 1980s. He deepened these ties during the late 1990s and early 2000s as part of Mauritania's drive to attract support from Western states and Western-aligned Arab states. Mauritania has not rescinded its recognition of Polisario's Western Saharan exile government and remains on good terms with Algeria. Its position on the Western Sahara conflict has been, since the 1980s, one of strict neutrality.
Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is an Arab Maghreb country in West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest. It is named after the ancient Berber Kingdom of Mauretania, which later became a province of the Roman Empire, even though the modern Mauritania covers a territory far to the south of the old Berber kingdom that had no relation with it.
The Battles of La Güera and Tichla took place between 10–22 December 1975, when the Mauritanian Army invaded the southern part of Western Sahara, which was the zone agreed to be annexed by Mauritania in the Madrid Accords. Mauritanian troops were confronted by Polisario Front guerrillas, forcing the Royal Moroccan Army to intervene on behalf of Mauritania. By the end of 1975, Mauritania controlled the southern half of the former Spanish colony of Río de Oro.
Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra is one of the twelve regions of Morocco. It is mainly located in the disputed territory of Western Sahara: the western part of the region is administered by Morocco and the eastern part by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The region as claimed by Morocco covers an area of 140,018 square kilometres (54,061 sq mi) and had a population of 367,758 as of the 2014 Moroccan census. The capital of the region is Laâyoune.
The Mauritania Islamic Air Force is the air force of the Armed Forces of Mauritania. It was established in 1960. Like many of the former French colonies, Mauritania received limited economic and military aid from France. The FAIM started out as a French-operated transport force, and has seen combat against the Polisario Front in the 1970s.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Nouakchott, Mauritania.
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The raid on Nouakchott in June 1976 was a significant military operation carried out by the Polisario Front, a Western Saharan guerrilla group, against the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott. Led by their leader El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed, the Polisario forces aimed to overthrow the regime of President Moktar Ould Daddah.
The Battle of Smara occurred between October 5 and 8, 1979, during the Western Sahara War at Smara, between the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces and the Polisario Front. Both sides asserted divergent narratives of the battle.