RABAT — Morocco took delivery earlier this month of
Turkish combat drones, the Far-Maroc unofficial website dedicated to military
news reported.
اضافة اعلان
The report, also carried by several local media outlets,
comes as tensions have spiked between Morocco and neighboring Algeria in recent
weeks.
The two countries are mainly at odds over the
disputed Western
Sahara territory, and Algeria severed ties with Morocco in August claiming
"provocations and hostile" action by its neighbor.
Relations took another blow this week when Algeria on
Wednesday said it has closed off its airspace to all Moroccan civilian and
military traffic.
According to Far-Maroc, the North African kingdom ordered 13
Bayraktar TB2 drones from Turkey in April and a first batch of the unmanned
aircraft arrived this month.
Rabat, said the report, seeks to "modernize the arsenal
of the Moroccan Armed Forces (FAR) in order to prepare for any danger and
recent hostilities", but did not elaborate on these topics.
It did however add that Moroccan military personnel have
trained in Turkey in recent weeks to work with the drones.
Media reports said Morocco signed a $70 million contract
with the private Turkish company Baykar.
The firm is run by one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's
son-in-laws and has been exporting its Bayraktar TB2 model to Ukraine, Qatar
and Azerbaijan for some years.
According to the company's website, the Bayraktar TB2 is a
"medium altitude long endurance tactical unmanned aerial vehicle capable
of conducting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and armed attack
missions" with a range of up to 27 hours.
Morocco already uses drones for intelligence and
surveillance operations along its borders, according to military experts.
The Western Sahara dispute pits Morocco against the
Algeria-backed Polisario Front which fought a war of independence with Rabat
from 1975 to 1991.
Morocco laid claim to the former Spanish colony with rich
phosphate resources and offshore fisheries after Spain withdrew in 1975, and
controls around 80 percent of it.
Rabat has offered autonomy there and maintains the territory
is a sovereign part of the kingdom but the Polisario is demanding a referendum
on self-determination, in line with the terms of a 1991 UN-backed ceasefire
deal.
Tensions rose sharply in November when Morocco sent troops
into a buffer zone to reopen the only road linking Morocco to Mauritania and
the rest of West Africa. The road had been blocked by the separatists.
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