Iranian Drones in North Africa Raise Concerns for Morocco’s Security

"Today, Iranian drones are deployed in North Africa and pose a direct threat to Morocco. Moroccan diplomats are actively raising the issue with Western governments. They claim that Iran, in collusion with Algeria, is supplying the militias of the Polisario Front, which are carrying out guerrilla attacks against Morocco over the kingdom’s position on the Western Sahara," analyzes Llewellyn King, executive producer and host of "White House Chronicle" on PBS in the columns of InsideSources.com.

Recalling that Iran’s experience with drones dates back to the war between Iran and Iraq between 1980 and 1988, he said that the country has gone from direct visibility drones, simple and only good for surveillance, to generations of drones, small and large, but increasingly sophisticated. With its defense industrial complex, the Iranian military can manufacture the engines and all the parts of its drones on site. To the point of now providing an impressive range of drones with long flight times and long delivery distances.

According to Llewellyn King, Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, told him that Iran had concluded that its strength did not lie in force-on-force competition, but in aiding asymmetric conflicts, "which is why" the authorities of the country "have devoted so much money and time to terrorism, and so much money and time to ballistic missiles. Then they found drones as the evolution of this strategy."

All of which leads King to say that Morocco is right to be concerned about its new vulnerability. "Drones, although they cannot win a war, can inflict serious damage on various targets, from tourist centers to military installations to vital power grids and power plants." According to Berman, the only effective defense system against drones is the Israeli "Iron Dome", built with Israeli technology and assisted and funded by the United States. Morocco could order some to counter Iran’s ambitions.