After Jihadists, Wagner now recruits Tindouf camps youth

Wagner is taking advantage to recruit young fighters from the Polisario-run Tindouf camps in Algeria, where Jihadist AQMI and ISIS have found fertile ground to enroll fighters.

The alarm bell was rang by FORSATIN, a Sahrawi forum that brings together advocates of Morocco’s autonomy plan.

“The early April attack by Wagner fighters on the Mauritanian territory showed the participation of Sahrawi youth alongside the Russian militia,” FORSATIN said in a statement.

FORSATIN, which has supporters secretly operating in the camps for fear of reprisal, reported that at least 500 Sahrawis were recruited in Tindouf camps by Wagner in return for a monthly salary of 3000 dollars.

Survivors of the Wagner attack reported that some of the attackers spoke the Hassani dialect, FORSATIN said.

Wagner sees propitious recruitment ground in the Tindouf camps, where thousands have received military training with no jobs or career prospects.

Faced with dim prospects and oppression in the camps, many of the disenchanted youth held under the yoke of the Poliario militias and their mentor, Algeria, turned to extremism.

The case of Adnan Abu Walid Asahrawi, former head of ISIS branch in the greater Sahara, is an abhorrent illustration of how disenchanted youth under the yoke of the Polisario seek salvation by joining terrorist groups.