The Director General of National Security and Territorial Surveillance, Abdellatif Hammouchi, received in Rabat, Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. The director, at the head of the high-level American delegation, indicated in a communiqué from the Directorate General of Surveillance that this is the second visit of its kind. This working visit is the second of its kind in the framework of the programme of contiguous action between the two sides. The first such visit was made by the Director General of Homeland and Territorial Security Surveillance to the United States of America in June 2022.
On this occasion, the Director of the United States Intelligence Service, the Chairman of the Department of General Intelligence of Central Intelligence and the Director of the Federal Department met. “This new meeting has become an opportunity for both sides to consider cooperation on both sides. On the one hand, the Department of Homeland Security and oversight of the Territory and, on the other hand, the United States General Department for the United States. The collaboration will serve to further research and exchange points on emerging threats and security issues, as well as discussions on the creation and security of security related to different phenomena related to international criminals,” Wray said at the meeting.
During the talks, the two sides discussed mechanisms for combating the movement of fighters of terrorist organisations through border crossings, and for exchanging information on these fighters, as well as consolidating operational cooperation in the fight against threats related to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and nuclear threats, and extending the scope of outstanding bilateral cooperation in the field of counter-terrorism to the Sahel region. The meeting noted that this new visit attests to the high level of bilateral cooperation between Moroccan security services and US law enforcement, which stems from the depth of the strategic partnership that unites the two countries in various fields.
This cooperation is based on a common desire to strengthen and develop it to ensure the consolidation of regional and international security and stability. For Hicham Mouatadid, political scientist and advisor on international affairs, US-Moroccan coordination has gone beyond the stage of traditional strategic cooperation between the two countries to “become tactical and operational, based on an integrated approach to manage anything that threatens the security of citizens of both countries”. In statements to Hespress, he said that the talk “was part of the launch of a new intervention protocol considered suitable by both Rabat and Washington, which has the sole purpose of modernising all the bureaucratic and coordination mechanisms between the different security services of the two countries”.
The political scientist believes that this new approach, in close collaboration between the Moroccan and American security systems, aims to create a new security balance in the Sahel and Sahara region, especially after the collapse of the French presence, which “is not desirable in the region, and which faces many political problems linked to the consequences of colonisation”. Mouatadid insisted that the new vision of security and defence coordination between the various Moroccan delegations and their US counterparts, “constitutes a new mapping of the joint US-Moroccan presence in the Sahel and Sahara region, especially since Rabat is considered the cornerstone of the security and political stability equation in the region”.
Rabat’s recent willingness to assist its strategic engagement with Washington in terms of security interventions in the region, “is part of the continuity of renewed geostrategic changes in the Sahel and Sahara region, which is witnessing unprecedented security transformations for historical reasons and others related to intercontinental terrorist provocations”.
Source : Atalayar
