Morocco Bolsters Air Defense with Chinese Missiles and US Apache Helicopters

The Moroccan armed forces are signing and executing contracts to modernize their equipment and military units. Thus, Morocco will soon receive its first FD-2000B air defense system. This air defense system, in which Morocco has shown interest since 2012, has been acquired from the People’s Republic of China.

The first battery should be available in early 2021. The infrastructure to accommodate what is considered Morocco’s first long-range air defense brigade is under construction. The FD-2000Bs have a maximum range of 200 kilometers and a height of 30 kilometers. The system can launch up to eight missiles on eight different targets simultaneously.

Morocco also intends to acquire North American F-16s and Apache helicopters to improve its air capability. In 2019, it invested more than $5 billion in aeronautical equipment. It also plans to acquire a Russian submarine and increase the number of frigates for its army.

Ksar Sghir, a naval base whose work, started since 2008, is already completed, a few kilometers from Tanger Med, could be ceded to the United States so that it can abandon the one in Rota (Spain). The bases of Al Aroui and Guercif, in Nador, near Melilla, on the other hand, have drones and have just received about twenty Apache AH-64E attack helicopters, informs El Español.

With the support of the United States and the United Kingdom, Morocco intends to close the airspace to the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, the same source specifies.