US Congress to Review Morocco’s SeaGuardian Drone Purchase Amid Israel-Morocco Ties

The acquisition by Morocco of the ultra-sophisticated SeaGuardian military drones will be studied in the coming days by the US Congress, reports the Spanish press. The kingdom had negotiated this acquisition under the Trump administration as part of the normalization of its relations with Israel in December 2020. Morocco therefore expects to receive its order of four latest generation MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones manufactured by the American company General Atomics. The Trump administration transmitted, on December 11, 2020, a notice to Congress regarding the sale of armed drones and precision-guided weapons to the kingdom for an amount of one billion dollars, had reported Reuters, citing American sources close to the negotiations. The agreement also includes Helfire, Paveway and JDAM precision-guided munitions, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing.

The latest generation MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones have a range of more than 11,000 kilometers, which would allow them to cover large expanses of sea or desert. According to explanations from the American manufacturer General Atomics, SeaGuardian is designed to fly over the horizon by satellite for more than 30 hours (depending on the configuration) in all weather conditions and to integrate safely into civilian airspace, allowing joint forces and civil authorities to provide real-time situational awareness anywhere in the maritime domain.

"This highly versatile maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft can seamlessly integrate a wide-area maritime radar, an automatic identification system, electronic support measures, and an autonomous anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission kit," he added.