Security and stability
The effectiveness of anti-terrorist cooperation was demonstrated during the Olympic Games in Paris. After many months of estrangement between France and Morocco for various political, economic and commercial reasons, and an alleged case of espionage with Pegasus, never proven and always denied by Rabat, even by King Mohammed VI himself in conversation with President Macron, the French authorities surrendered to clear evidence: the need for Moroccan cooperation to prevent terrorist attacks. The French Interior Minister himself, Gérald Darmanin, stated in April during a visit to Rabat that ‘without the Moroccan intelligence services, France would be more exposed to terrorism, especially in the run-up to the Olympic Games’.
With terrorism there is never zero risk, but prevention through information and intelligence is the best remedy to avoid and neutralise threats before they act, which, unfortunately, are always latent and ready to strike the hardest possible blows, as happened in 2015 in the Bataclan hall in Paris or in Brussels, where the arrest of the terrorists took place thanks to the collaboration of the Moroccan intelligence services.
For years, cooperation between Spain and Morocco has included the active presence of a Spanish judge and a Spanish police officer in Moroccan premises and a Moroccan judge and a Moroccan police officer in Spanish premises, as well as joint patrols. This is a model with very good results that has been requested by other countries.
In Morocco, the person most directly responsible for maintaining, improving and modernising the rigorous and innovative strategy that guarantees police effectiveness and prevention against crime and terrorism is Abdellatif Hammouchi, at the head of the Directorate General of National Security and the Directorate General of Territorial Surveillance (DGSN-DGST). Decorated by Spain and France, the work of the Moroccan security forces under his leadership has placed Morocco in a key security position for the region and internationally. In the face of false accusations without evidence, the reality is that, as Khadija Taouil writes in Atalayar, Hammouchi has implemented major reforms in the Moroccan security services based on principles of innovation, proactivity, cooperation, information sharing and training of national security forces, applying a particular model in terms of governance, methodology and objectives to modernise the country's security system and adapt it to the demands of the new technological and information age.
Always exposed to an isolated dagger attack, cooperation between Morocco and Europe is the best prevention.