Morocco’s contentious cooperation with Israel has resulted in the country becoming North Africa’s first maker of drones. Morocco has become the first country in North Africa and the Middle East to produce suicide drones, joining the elite group of drone makers. The drone is believed to have amazing capabilities for reconnaissance and attack.
According to Morocco World News, BlueBird, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) that designs and manufactures drones, recently conducted the first field test of the new SpyX suicide drone in Morocco.
This drone is part of Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces (FAR). The footage released to BlueBird’s website demonstrates that the pilot’s test mission was a big success.
The drone has a 50-kilometer range and was designed for reconnaissance and attack operations. It can be used for an hour and a half.
I24News alleged that Israeli journalists first saw these drones in Morocco in June 2023. This shows that the FAR tested the drones before purchasing them in big quantities, becoming the first army to employ this type of drone after BlueBird introduced them only a few months prior.
Morocco ordered 150 WanderB and ThunderB drones from BlueBird in September 2022, as reported by El Español and I24News. Morocco World News reports that in the same month, the country sought two Ofek-13 reconnaissance satellites from Israel to enhance its monitoring and intelligence capabilities.
According to a Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) research on the arms trade, Morocco receives the majority of its weapons from Israel, which supplies 11% of its armaments to the North African country.
This complicates matters, considering Israel’s war on Gaza and Morocco’s opposition to Israel’s violence in the region.
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI recently ordered the distribution of emergency humanitarian supplies to the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, totaling 30 tons of necessary food and 10 tons of emergency medicines and blankets.
However, the Moroccan government has not heeded angered Moroccan protestors’ call to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel.