A recent video (video underneath), taken by a local citizen in the city of Casablanca, featuring elements of the Moroccan army deploying some of its air-defense missiles in anticipation of any prospective terrorist attacks is going viral on the net.
The video shows heavy military equipment being deployed. The list includes Buk missile batteries, surface-to-air missiles and many more.
Local media outlets reported heavily about the event saying that an “impressive arsenal of military equipment has been deployed on the Atlantic coast of Casablanca,” namely near the El Hank neighborhood.
The Moroccan daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribiya shared a story on the event entitled “an atmosphere of war surprised the citizens of Casablanca.”
The aforementioned daily added in its story that this unusual deployment was believed to be, in the first place, a movie shooting, especially that recent reports indicated that scenes from the prospective Mission Impossible 5 movie, featuring Hollywood star Tom Cruise, are set to be shoot in Casablanca. Nevertheless, this hypothesis was soon swept under the carpet, according to said daily, as soon as an “investigation” from local citizens revealed that no professional shooting materials were witnessed on the scenes, and especially that the Royal Armed Forces elements were seen maneuvering in a very professional way.
Al Ahdath al Maghribiya went on further and made an analysis about the situation arguing that “this deployment of the FAR (Moroccan Royal Army Forces) comes after 11 hijacked Libyan civilian aircraft had fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb terrorist group, and that the Casablanca’s twin center (a smaller version of the New York Twin centers) may be among the “sensitive locations” that the terrorist group may attack. Al Ahdath Al Maghribiya said as well that the CIA has issued recently a warning to Morocco on the matter.
According to the CIA report, Al Ahdath Al Maghribia said that the American intelligence agency believes that Maghreb countries could experience similar terrorist attacks to those that targeted the twin towers of New York, especially on the occasion of the 13th anniversary of the disaster.
Said source added that “the mobilization of the Moroccan army comes in response to this threat, which is “taken very seriously by the authorities.”
According to another Moroccan daily, namely Assabah, the deployment of the Moroccan army is to counter the Islamic State threat, formerly known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria)/ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant). The daily argues that “the army has deployed its forces in Casablanca to meet any prospective IS aircraft.”
Assabah goes on in its analysis arguing that “the deployment of the Moroccan army on the Corniche of Ain Diab comes as a result of the recent threats against Morocco issued by said terrorist organization lead by Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, IS/ISIS/ISIL/Daaich.”
Another Moroccan daily, Al Massae, went in its analysis in the same direction as Al Ahdath Al Maghribia saying that Morocco is witnessing a “state of high alert and that the country is thoroughly monitoring its airspace against any prospective terrorist attacks,” adding that orders were given to airports control towers to multiply checks before allowing any commercial aircraft to use Morocco’s airspace, especially that Casablanca has a “miniature” of the Twin towers that were hit by two hijacked commercial airplanes back in 2001 in New York. Al Massae closes its analysis saying that the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which is drawing near, made the Moroccan authorities act accordingly.
The Moroccan Times.
