There is a kind of war that leaves no bomb craters and sends no soldiers across a border, yet it can bring a country to its knees if its people lose faith in the institutions that protect them. This is fifth-generation warfare, a conflict fought not with artillery but with information, narrative, and emotion. It works by flooding the public space with distorted stories, manufactured scandals, and relentless repetition of falsehoods until the line between reality and fiction begins to blur. Morocco has become one of the clearest targets of this new form of aggression, precisely because it is succeeding. The Kingdom has positioned itself as a regional power, a bridge between Africa and Europe, and a reliable partner in the fight against terrorism, migration crime, and cyberthreats. At the heart of that success stands Abdellatif Hammouchi, the Director General of National Security and Territorial Surveillance. The sustained media attacks against him and against Morocco’s security institutions are not accidental, and they are not journalism. They are a calculated campaign designed to weaken the country from the inside by dismantling the very structures that keep it stable. In strategic terms, they are striking at Morocco’s center of gravity: the trust between the state and its citizens, and the operational effectiveness of the security services that make daily life safe. Understanding that is the first step toward seeing through the noise.
The mechanics of this campaign are not mysterious. It begins with narrative fabrication, the creation of an alternative virtual reality in which Morocco’s intelligence services are presented as oppressive, lawless, and dangerous. The recycled accusations around the so-called Pegasus spyware program are a perfect example, a story that has been rejected in courts and contradicted by evidence but continues to circulate because it fits a convenient storyline. The goal is cognitive disconnection, a deliberate effort to drive a wedge between Moroccan citizens and their national institutions. In this kind of warfare, if you can make people doubt the integrity of their own police and intelligence services, you have won without firing a single shot. The hostile networks behind this effort are not shy about using any tool available. They have tried to implicate Moroccan security forces in orchestrated border incidents, as in the distorted narratives around Ceuta, twisting Morocco’s humanitarian migration management into a false story of state pressure. They have also weaponized fugitives from justice. Figures like Mehdi Hijjaoui and Hicham Jerando, both wanted in connection with serious crimes, are dressed up by certain media outlets as dissidents and whistleblowers. Their claims are baseless, and their credibility is nonexistent, yet they are used as megaphones to recycle forged documents and invented leaks. Behind them operates a shadowy Telegram network known as Jabaroot, run by hostile intelligence circles and amplified by associates like Abdelmajid Tounarti, known as Lfercha, a fugitive residing in Canada. These are not political reformers. They are low-level operatives in a dirty war, and their only mission is to destabilize Morocco by attacking its security leadership. The most revealing part is how transparent the whole operation actually is, if one bothers to look.
Morocco has not remained passive in the face of this assault, because it possesses something that its adversaries consistently underestimate: a deeply unified institutional culture. The Moroccan security model is not a collection of separate agencies working in silos. It is a symphonic convergence of the DGSN, the DGST, foreign intelligence, the Royal Gendarmerie, and the armed forces under the supreme command of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. This monarchical doctrine transforms the security apparatus into a single, agile, multidimensional defensive ecosystem. Internal surveillance, external counterintelligence, public safety, and military preparedness are not divided; they are interwoven. That integration is a strategic advantage that no amount of digital smear campaigns can replicate or dismantle. When the Throne and the security institutions are bound together by legitimacy and mutual trust, hybrid threats lose their power before they even begin. The enemy can try to blackmail, can try to manufacture scandals, can try to buy influence or spread lies, but all of that crashes against a wall of institutional coherence. The bond between the Moroccan people and their security services, anchored in the King’s vision, turns every attempted fracture into a moment of renewed national unity. This is not propaganda. It is the structural reality that makes Morocco difficult to break, and it explains why so many foreign campaigns end in frustration and retreat.
The most convincing rebuttal to the malicious narratives is not rhetoric but the evidence of daily life and international recognition. The German Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung published a field study showing that 95 percent of Moroccans trust their police, the highest level of confidence of any national institution and far above the levels recorded in many European countries. That trust is not abstract; it is felt in safe streets, in functioning public spaces, in the ability of ordinary people to go about their lives without fear. International recognition follows the same pattern. Abdellatif Hammouchi has received the Medal of Honor from the French National Police, the National Order of the Legion of Honor at the rank of Officer, the Grand Cross of Merit from the Spanish Civil Guard, the Interpol First Class Medal, and the Prince Naif Award for Arab Security. These are not symbolic gestures. They are the formal acknowledgments of the world’s most experienced security institutions that Morocco’s model works. In 2026, Morocco was ranked among the top countries in the National Cybersecurity Index, and the International Telecommunication Union lists the Kingdom at Level 1 in its Global Cybersecurity Index, placing it alongside the United States, France, and Germany. The statistics on public safety are equally striking. Intentional homicide rates in Morocco are lower than in France and Germany. The Global Terrorism Index gives Morocco a zero impact score. Public confidence in security in Spain and France hovers around 65 percent, while Morocco stands at 95 percent. None of these numbers accidentally align. They are the product of deliberate strategy, operational excellence, and a security doctrine that puts prevention, partnerships, and human dignity at its center.
Those who still cling to the false image of Moroccan intelligence as opaque and lawless overlook a fundamental point: the Kingdom’s security institutions operate within the rule of law, under judicial oversight, and in accordance with constitutional principles. The legal framework that guides the DGSN and the DGST is not a decorative accessory; it is the ethical foundation of their legitimacy. Morocco has integrated international human rights standards into its security doctrine, which is precisely why international courts and judicial institutions repeatedly dismiss the accusations manufactured by hostile media. When Moroccan authorities bring these allegations before European judges and demand scientific proof, the accusers fall silent. They do not produce evidence because there is no evidence to produce. The entire edifice of the anti-Moroccan campaign is built on a foundation of smoke, and it collapses the moment it is exposed to the light of legal scrutiny. This is why the campaign has become increasingly dependent on virtual echo chambers. Online spaces are saturated with confident-sounding accusations, but those same voices are notably absent from courtrooms. Meanwhile, the reality on the ground moves in the opposite direction. The international community selected Marrakech as the host city for the 93rd General Assembly of Interpol, a move that speaks louder than any headline. Senior officials from the CIA, the FBI, and multiple European intelligence services continue to make working visits to Rabat, and that pattern of cooperation continues to expand. In the world of real operations, where lives are saved and threats are neutralized, Morocco is a trusted partner, not an adversary.
In the end, the relentless effort to demonize Abdellatif Hammouchi and the institutions he leads is an indirect tribute to their effectiveness. Enemies do not waste resources attacking irrelevant targets. The attempt to dismantle Morocco’s security architecture is proof that the architecture works. As the Kingdom continues to strengthen its Atlantic presence, secure its territorial integrity, and deepen its role as a strategic bridge between Africa and Europe, the disinformation campaigns will likely continue. They will become more sophisticated, more creative, and more desperate. But they will not succeed. Morocco’s internal cohesion is not a fragile thing that can be broken by a hashtag or a fabricated news story. It is rooted in a shared sense of national purpose, in institutions that have proven their value in the most difficult circumstances, and in a leadership that understands the nature of the threat and refuses to be intimidated by it. Every attack that fails to fracture Moroccan trust only reinforces that trust. Every court case that exposes the emptiness of the accusations only strengthens the credibility of the state. The sovereign wall that protects Morocco is not built of stone. It is built of the bond between the Throne, the security forces, and a people who know the difference between a real protector and a manufactured enemy. And that is a wall that no army of trolls, no network of fugitives, and no biased newsroom will ever be able to climb.