The Polisario Front announced Friday the death of one of its most prominent leaders, along with four of his comrades, in the Mahbas area near Tindouf in eastern Morocco.
The head of the sixth military region, Abba Ali Hamudi, a member of the Polisario national secretariat, was killed along with four other fighters on September 1, announced the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic”, which proclaimed unilaterally by the Polisario Front in 1976.
The statement did not mention the details of the incident, but AFP reported that they were attacked by a Moroccan drone.
This comes at a time when the Sahara buffer zone is occasionally witnessing attacks by armed groups from the Polisario against the Moroccan Armed Forces in a violation of a 1991 ceasefire.
Morocco didn’t deny or confirm targeting an armed group in the buffer zone in Western Sahara.
The Sahrawi presidency declared three days of national mourning beginning on Saturday.
Hamudi was elected a member of the national secretariat during the sixteenth conference of the Front and joined the army in 1975, assuming leadership tasks.
He rose through the ranks to command the Sixth Military Region.
The Front added that Hamudi participated in several military operations and was wounded several times, noting that he underwent multiple military trainings in Syria, Libya, and Algeria.
