Second Battle of Amgala

Overview

The Second Battle of Amgala, also called Amgala II or Amgala 2, took place on 14 February 1976 in the Amgala Oasis in Western Sahara. It pitted the Moroccan troops, who lost Amgala, to the forces of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Polisario Front, supported by the Algerian army. According to Maurice Barbier, the Moroccan garrison in the city was entirely decimated.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Second Battle of Amgala, fought at the Amgala Oasis in February 1976, resulted in the defeat of Moroccan forces stationed there, with the garrison reportedly entirely decimated according to historian Maurice Barbier. The engagement demonstrated the capacity of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Polisario Front, to strike Moroccan positions with Algerian military support. The battle deepened the direct antagonism between Morocco and Algeria over the Western Sahara conflict, underscoring that the war was not simply an insurgency but a confrontation involving a neighboring state's conventional forces. This alignment between the Polisario Front and Algeria shaped the broader trajectory of the Western Sahara War, hardening the political and military divide that would define the conflict through its duration.

Commanders (4)