Morocco’s Acquisition of Turkish Combat Drones Raises Concerns in Spain

The Turkish drone Bayraktar TB2 is a powerful deterrent and weapon of mass destruction. It is said to have allowed Turkey to exterminate several hundred Kurdish fighters and civilians in Syria, or to destroy Russian anti-aircraft systems of the rebel forces of Marshal Haftar in Libya, or even to disarm the Armenian army during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. "While American or Chinese drones carry large bombs, the TB2 fires small guided bombs weighing 20 kg," explains Jesús Manuel Pérez Triana, a military analyst and author of the blog Postmodern Wars, quoted by El Mundo.

Several countries such as Morocco, Ukraine, Pakistan or Poland have expressed their interest very early on in this military equipment whose price-performance ratio is convincing. The TB2 drone, 12 meters long and capable of spending an entire day in the air, is, according to Pérez Triana, "a low-cost solution" to use against scattered guerrilla groups, but not against crowds.

Would the news of the acquisition of these latest generation drones by Morocco and their transfer to a military base near Melilla worry Spain? For Pérez Triana, "it’s something delicate," especially since the general command of Ceuta and Melilla has a "basic and limited" mixed artillery regiment, including an anti-aircraft group with a Swiss 35mm system and the Mistral [short-range air defense system]. This is no match for the TB2 which, according to the expert, is very difficult to detect on radar.

Obviously, Al-Aroui is as close to Melilla as it is to Algeria, observes Rachid el Younoussi, director of the Infotalqual website, who believes that Morocco’s objective "is to get ahead of Algeria in a financial and military battle to position itself as an African leader." For other analysts, Morocco would have acquired these drones to better fight the Polisario Front. "We will probably see them at the Laayoune airport. I don’t think they will be circulating in Melilla," reassured Pérez Triana.