Morocco takes advantage of Spain in the use of armed drones

Morocco takes advantage of Spain in the use of armed drones, something that for the moment is excluded by Spanish military doctrine.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
21 December 2022 Wednesday 00:31
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Morocco takes advantage of Spain in the use of armed drones

Morocco takes advantage of Spain in the use of armed drones, something that for the moment is excluded by Spanish military doctrine. In the kingdom of Mohamed VI, not only are unmanned aircraft capable of carrying weapons munitions, but also personnel are trained in their use in real operations, as is apparently happening in Western Sahara.

Specialists say that it is not a critical imbalance, but "Morocco pays attention to drones and in some of these areas it has an advantage," the professor of Political Science at the University of Granada and director of the digital publication Global told La Vanguardia. Strategy, Javier Jordan.

Morocco frequently exaggerates the breadth of its arsenals, but in the case of drones it has been confirmed that various models of these unmanned devices are being supplied and that Chinese and especially Turkish ingenuities are the ones that are acquiring the largest quantities. . The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone is one that the Moroccan armed forces are using most extensively. And with which he is acquiring a greater degree of combat experience.

Since the fighting between Moroccan units and the Polisario Front resumed two years ago, Western Sahara seems to be the scene of tests -deadly in some cases- with drones by Morocco. Unmanned devices, probably Bayraktar units, are behind several attacks on Saharawi or Algerian convoys since April 2021.

Spain, as confirmed by Professor Javier Jordán, lacks preparation in this area and does not even have experience in the field of training in the use of ammunitioned drones. “There is political reluctance to arm the drones,” he comments.

This military doctrine of not using offensive drones seems to come, according to this specialist, from the times of the United States' war against Al Qaeda. The operations, many of them organized by the CIA and designed to kill prominent members of the terrorist organization from the air, ended on many occasions with resounding failures and with them very serious collateral victims. Sometimes, even, with target errors as terrible as mistaking the coordinates of the target and blowing up a family reunion in which there was no terrorist.

“They were very important intelligence errors, but not failures in the devices. This made many Western countries show their rejection of the use of armed drones, which had such a bad reputation”, says Javier Jodrá. Spain is not the only one in Europe that is guided by this rule. In fact, the rejection of armed drones within the EU is the majority, but that is changing.

Many countries of the Union have, like Spain, drones that could be perfectly armed, but the training for this has not begun except in France, which is modifying its doctrine in this regard and already has personnel training in the use of a drone. North American manufacture with offensive projection, although like Spain, Italy and Germany it participates in an Airbus project to have a high-capacity drone that will not have to depend on non-EU technology.

Another 30 countries in the world are estimated to use drones with attack capabilities, of greater or lesser sophistication, as Morocco is doing. The neighboring country to the south not only has Chinese and Turkish-made drones in its fleet, but it will also have North American-made unmanned devices, within the collaboration agreements between the two countries.

In addition, Morocco is going to become the first country in Africa where military drones are manufactured, in this case the result of an agreement between the Mohamed VI Administration and the Israeli government. According to the professor of Political Science, Javier Jodrá, they are going to build two assembly plants for Harop suicide drones. "These are very long-range marauders," this specialist explains.

Spain already has four Predator B units, like the ones that Morocco wants to have, with the capacity to be armed, but that never have been. It is a highly sophisticated device that the Air Force uses in intelligence work and for missions to monitor national territory and waters. Their base is in Talavera la Real, in Badajoz, but they also have deployment capacity in Lanzarote.

The Spanish armed forces also have units of the Searcher III, an unmanned aircraft dependent on the Army, but which recently underwent an update and modernization, precisely, with Israeli technology. These devices have indeed been deployed –never armed- in Spanish missions abroad such as in Afghanistan in intelligence and surveillance work. During the aforementioned mission, two devices were lost.

In international media, Morocco's great capacity to acquire state-of-the-art and so expensive military equipment is surprising, not only in the field of drones. It is buying Apache helicopter gunships and upgrading and expanding its contingent of US-made Abrams armored vehicles.

There are many analysts who point out that Morocco is counting on the help of third countries when making such important investments and that the origin of such aid would come from the monarchies of the Persian Gulf. In fact, various reports suggest that, despite the American reluctance, the Rabat government would be seeking the intermediation of Israel and the economic support of the United Arab Emirates to acquire several units of the latest generation F-35 fighter-bomber, which Spain -which it lacks the budget for it- it would also like to acquire it for its vertical take-off and landing capacity and thus replace the already outdated Harriers of the Navy that embarks the aircraft carrier Juan Carlos I.