Failed Foreign Plots: King Hassan II’s Regime Survived Multiple Coup Attempts

The weekly Al Ayam returns, in its latest edition, to the attempts to overthrow the regime of the late Hassan II. The perpetrators were international organizations or foreign countries.

During the Skhirat coup d’état in 1971, the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, had asked the late Algerian President, Houari Boumediene, to authorize his fighter jets to fly over his country’s airspace to participate in the Skhirat coup.

In 1988, Jordanian-origin Egyptians had studied the possibility of overthrowing the Moroccan regime at length. But the attempt had been aborted when they learned that the Moroccan intelligence services had been informed of their project.

A year later, in 1989, Palestinians had managed to smuggle weapons and bombs into Morocco, with the aim of killing Hassan II. An employee of the Palestinian Embassy in Rabat had got wind of this affair and informed the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, who in turn informed the Moroccan authorities.

Two years later, Libyans, again them, had planned to kill Hassan II as he was about to board the royal train at the Agdal station in Rabat. But the assassination attempt failed once again.

In 1991 as well, elements of the Japanese Red Army, members of the Palestinian Popular Front, who had already carried out operations against Tel Aviv Airport in Israel, had planned to assassinate the late monarch by shooting him as he left the Rabat Golf Club.

The Japanese and Palestinians had entered Morocco, but had backed down at the last minute when they realized that the Moroccans who were supposed to help them in this operation were not qualified for this kind of mission.

The last foreign attempt to assassinate Hassan II dates back to 1995, concludes Al Ayam. The instigators had the objective of poisoning the late King, but the operation had been canceled.

Four years later, on July 23, 1999, the late Hassan II died, after 38 years of reign. His people, whom he had led with an iron fist, due to the political situation of the time, invested Rabat on the day of his funeral, to pay him a last tribute. The authorities had been forced to block access to the capital, faced with this impressive human tide coming from all over the country. Thousands of people mourned him that day.

Note: article originally published in May 2015