Failure to settle the Sahara issue continues to hamper anti-terrorism cooperation in North Africa, a region beset by destabilization threats of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) network, said on Tuesday US terrorism expert, Daniel Benjamin.

The constant positions on the Sahara issue, repeated by many African countries during the last summit of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, allowed foiling maneuvers by opponents of the Kingdom’s territorial integrity, said Sunday in Rabat, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Saad El Dine Otmani.

U.S. and international experts gathering in a conference Wednesday in Washington, stressed the existing collusion between Polisario elements and Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist group that relies on a base of activists and recruits to implement its destabilizing ends in the Sahel-Saharan region, becaming an "arc of instability".