By claiming an intensification of its military operations against the Moroccan army in December 2025, the Polisario Front has crossed a politically consequential threshold: that of a direct confrontation with the U.S. security doctrine under President Donald Trump, in which any persistent armed action against a strategic ally of the United States is liable to be treated as terrorist activity.
According to the Sahara Press Service (SPS), the official outlet of the Polisario and Algeria, units of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) carried out targeted shelling on December 10–11, 2025, against Moroccan positions in the Hawza sector, particularly at Fadra Laghrab and Fadra Al-Ach, causing, according to statements from the Sahrawi Ministry of Defense, human and material losses.
The language used, glorification of violence, exalted warlike terminology, and explicit designation of an “enemy”, fits within rhetoric of openly embraced armed confrontation.
On December 17, 2025, the Polisario again claimed strikes against Moroccan bases in the Guelta sector, notably in the Ajbeylat El Beid area, asserting that it had inflicted significant material and human damage.
These publicized attacks target military positions located behind a defensive wall recognized by the international community as a UN, supervised ceasefire line.
For the U.S. administration, these actions are far from trivial from a legal and strategic standpoint, especially as the United States officially recognizes Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, a decision taken under Donald Trump and never overturned by his successors.
For Washington, Rabat is a consolidated strategic partner, benefiting from strengthened economic, military, security, and intelligence cooperation.
In this context, the continuation of claimed armed attacks against Moroccan forces places the Polisario in an increasingly narrow red zone.
Since the September 11 attacks, U.S. doctrine has tended to equate any non-state organization conducting regular, cross-border, and ideologically claimed military operations against a major ally with a potential terrorist threat.
An aggravating factor lies in the logistical and political support provided by Algeria, regularly identified by American analysts as an element of regional destabilization in the Sahel and the Maghreb.
In an environment where Washington closely monitors connections between armed groups, Sahelian zones, and transnational trafficking, the persistence of claimed military activity exposes the Polisario to an increasingly harsh security assessment, including scrutiny of its alleged links to terrorist organizations and to Iran in the Middle East against Israel.
Moreover, the movement’s communication strategy, exaltation of “heroic operations,” glorification of armed violence, and explicit rejection of UN frameworks, feeds the arguments of those in the United States who advocate for a formal designation of the Polisario as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Such a designation would have immediate consequences: freezing of support, criminalization of political and humanitarian intermediaries, and increased diplomatic isolation of both the Polisario and the Algerian military regime.
By seeking to challenge U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara through force, the Polisario appears to ignore a fundamental reality: in Washington, the era of armed movements tolerated in the name of ideological causes is over.
The continuation of internationally unrecognized military attacks will transform a movement once perceived as political into an armed actor assimilated to a terrorist organization, with all the implications that entails.
For many Western decision-makers, this dimension regionalizes the conflict and reinforces its interpretation as a vector of strategic destabilization, running counter to Euro-Atlantic priorities of security, countering extremism, and stabilizing the southern flank of the Mediterranean.