• Inspector General Mohammed Berid succeeds General Belkhir El Farouk as the King’s new number two.

• The appointment comes amid months of heightened tensions with Algeria over Western Sahara.

A statement from the royal palace indicated that despite tensions with Algeria over Western Sahara, King Mohammed VI of Morocco selected a new second-in-command of the armed forces on Saturday. For a long time, the Algiers-backed Polisario Front sought independence for Western Sahara, which Rabat’s capital city claims is Moroccan territory.

In accordance with the Moroccan constitution, the King himself commands the armed forces, with his new number two as Inspector General Mohammed Berid who succeeded General Belkhir El Farouk. Mohammed Berid is seven years younger than 75-year-old El Farouk, although there was no reason for the change in the announcement by the official MAP news agency. Berid was formerly in charge of the zone that includes disputed Western Sahara.

The shift that took place on Saturday comes amid months of escalating tensions with Algeria following the breakdown of a long-standing truce in Western Sahara and Morocco’s normalization of relations with Israel in late 2020 as part of the historic Abraham Accords. The Global Firepower website reported that Morocco has about 310,000 regular soldiers and 150,000 reservists.

Moreso, while the Algerian armed forces primarily rely on Russian-made equipment, the United States has just given Morocco permission to purchase 18 HIMARS precision missile systems to Morocco, as the rivalry between the two Maghreb states is also fuelling the regional weapons race.

Please comment with your thoughts on this and share with others.