in vain to gain backing from several Arab governments, including both Algeria and Morocco itself, the movement only succeeded in obtaining support from Libya and Mauritania. As a result of this ambivalence, the movement eventually relocated to Spanish-controlled Western Sahara to start an armed rebellion. Women in Western Sahara are prominent members of the Polisario Front as soldiers and activists. Conflict Beginnings of armed struggle The Polisario Front was formally constituted on 10 May 1973 in the Mauritanian city of Zouirate, with the express intention of militarily forcing an end to Spanish colonization. Its first Secretary General was El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed. On 20 May he led the Khanga raid, the Polisario's first armed action, in which a Spanish post manned by a team of Tropas Nomadas (Sahrawi-staffed auxiliary forces) was overrun and a cache of rifles seized. The Polisario gradually gained control over large swaths of the Western Saharan desert, and its power grew steadily after early 1975 when the Tropas Nomadas began deserting en masse to the Polisario Front, bringing their weapons and training with them. At this point, the maximum extent of the Polisario Front's manpower included perhaps 800 men, but they were backed by a larger network of supporters. The 1975 United Nations visiting mission to Spanish Sahara, headed by Simeon Aké, concluded that Sahrawi support for independence (as opposed to Spanish rule or integration with a neighboring country) amounted to an "overwhelming consensus" and that the Polisario Front was by far the most powerful political force in the country. Western Sahara War The Western Sahara War was an armed conflict, lasting from 1975 to 1991, fought primarily between the Polisario Front and Morocco. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords, by which it agreed to give administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania. The Polisario Front, backed by Algeria and Libya, desiring instead the establishment an independent Sahrawi state in the territory, fought both Mauritania and Morocco in quick succession, in an attempt to drive their forces out of the region. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew its forces from the disputed territory, and the Polisario Front and Morocco reached a ceasefire agreement in 1991. The war resulted in somewhere between 14,000 and 21,000 casualties between both sides.. Some 40,000–80,000 Sahrawi refugees were displaced as a result of the conflict; at present, most still reside