Western Sahara's liberation movement, Polisario, is attracting the support of a growing number of foreign oil firms with the promise of exploration rights if it achieves independence, a top official said.

Morocco seized Western Sahara after it gained independence from Spain in 1975 and waged a low-intensity guerilla war with the Polisario Front until the UN brokered a ceasefire in 1991 and sent in peacekeepers.
  "We anticipate our independence and since we have very concrete indications that Western Sahara will be a producer of oil, we've started building our own oil policy, offering licences onshore and offshore," Khadad Mhamed, a senior Polisario official, said.
"On the basis that they consider international legality on our side, companies are signing with us to buy licences for the future, which will be implemented just after independence," he said on the sidelines of an African Union meeting in Sudan.
Polisario set up the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in 1976, which is recognised by the African Union (AU).
Six small and medium-sized UK companies were in talks with the SADR government about licences to explore offshore, while two or three other European firms had expressed interest in onshore licences offered earlier this month, Mhamed said.