RABAT: A Moroccan military transport plane slammed into a mountain Tuesday not far from the disputed Western Sahara, killing dozens, the state news agency reported. Information Minister Khaled Naciri confirmed to The Associated Press that the plane crashed near the city of Guelmim on Tuesday. "There are people dead," Naciri said by telephone. He would not give a death toll or other information, saying the government was trying to pin down details. The state news agency MAP said dozens were killed when the Royal Armed Forces C-130 jet crashed into a mountain as it prepared to land at the Guelmim military air base. The Goud news website said 26 people were killed and four wounded. It said 70 people were aboard. Both reports cited unnamed local sources, and could not immediately be confirmed. MAP said the plane was carrying members of the Royal Armed Fores en route from Dakhla, in the disputed Western Sahara, to Kinitra in northern Morocco, and making a stop in Guelmim. Moroccan defense officials would not comment on the crash. Officials at the military hospital in Guelmim could not be reached. Guelmim is more than 600 kilometers (360 miles) southwest of the capital Rabat, just north of the Western Sahara and a few dozen kilometers from the Atlantic Coast. Morocco took over the mineral-rich Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1979. The Saharawi people want to establish the region as an independent state. UN peacekeepers have been there since 1991, and the UN has demanded a referendum but Morocco has instead proposed wide-ranging autonomy for estimated half a million people who live in Western Sahara's sparsely populated desert flatland. Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
