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 LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara (AP) - With each question she refused to answer, 14-year-old Zahra Bassiri said, Moroccan police grabbed her hair, yanked her head back and slammed her face against the wall.
Activists say pro-independence demonstrators have suffered from escalating police brutality recently ahead of talks this week on the status of Western Sahara, a disputed, Texas-sized swath of North African desert that has been a major source of tension between the region's powers since Morocco occupied it three decades ago.
The United States wants neighbors Morocco and Algeria and Western Sahara's main independence movement, the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, to agree on a peace plan so that the region can focus on another pressing North African problem: al-Qaida-inspired Islamic terrorism.
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