The magazine noted that the recent arrests of polisario militants by countries in the region confirm that the separatist group have joined al Qaeda in drugs, arms, and humanitarian aid trafficking in North Africa's desert borderlands.

    In this respect, FP recalled Mauritania’s recent release of Omar le Sahraoui, a Polisario veteran on hire for AQIM who kidnapped three Spanish aid workers in November 2009, adding that Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington (CSIS) reported that some 20 other polisario members were arrested for the kidnapping.

    In January, Algerian security services arrested Sidi Mohamed Mahjoub, a Polisario imam, who hid arms, 20 kilos of explosives, and correspondence with AQIM leader Abd al-Malik Droukdel in his home, the same source said, noting that these captures were confirmed by regional experts Abdul Hameed Bakier of the Jamestown Foundation in Washington and Claude Moniquet of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence & Security Center.

    The bi-monthly magazine cited Sahara experts such as J. Peter Pham, senior vice president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, saying that the conflict over the Sahara “undermines regional cooperation in North Africa and encourages terrorism and trafficking”.

     The same view was echoed by Anouar Boukhars, assistant professor of international relations at McDaniel College and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute, Doha, who considered that the Sahara dispute “has created an environment propitious for the spread of violent extremism."

    According to Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the Transnational Threats Project of CSIS, the magazine said there were links between the two organisations in a 2005 attack on a military base in Mauritania where polisario vehicles and members were involved.

     Touching on the suffering endured by the Sahrawis held against their will in the Tindouf camps (south-western Algeria), FP quoted Michael Braun, former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief of operations and intelligence, expressing concern that the camps are "a breeding ground for potential future AQIM recruits."

     In this connection, Pham stressed that the resentment and marginalisation felt by the population held captive in the camps is expected to continue in the absence of a political solution to the Sahara conflict, FP reported.

     Some polisario members and youth first joined al Qaeda in response to bin Laden's call for Arab fighters in Afghanistan, the Magazine recalled, adding that others were influenced by the “Jihadist ideology” during their years of study at Algerian universities or other Arab countries.

     Boukhars of McDaniel College underlined that Sahrawi youth in the camps "are growing increasingly disenchanted” with the polisario leadership's passivity, added the magazine.

    The FP concluded that while the UN-led negotiations over the Sahara are deadlocked, Al Qaeda's operations continue in the Maghreb and Sahel region.