Thirteen days before the start of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), the national security system, including the DGSN (National Security Directorate), the Royal Gendarmerie, and the Auxiliary Forces, is refining its strategy. The objective is to ensure that the competition takes place under optimal security conditions, as confirmed by Ihsane Hafidi, PhD in Security Studies and Risk Management, in an interview with Le360.
The national security system will be fully operational in Rabat starting next week to ensure the safety of delegations, particularly those of international referees, coaches, and national teams arriving in Morocco. This security apparatus will be deployed around hotels, stadiums, and along routes between residences, training facilities, and stadiums. From December 21st, the opening day of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and the match between Morocco and Comoros, these security measures will be extended to the five other host cities (Casablanca, Tangier, Fez, Marrakech, and Agadir).
In reality, the management of major events is now considered a science and not a simple action strategy or plan, explained this security affairs expert.
The author of the book *Security Policies in Morocco: On the Authority and Roles of Political Elites* (published in 2020) emphasized that managing major events, such as the Africa Cup of Nations or the World Cup, requires the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. He explained that this complex management necessitates the participation of local and international actors as oversight bodies. The academic added that crowd management specifically requires knowledge, experience, and expertise from the relevant services.
But for the specialist, the most important thing is not the quantity but the coordination of the different security forces, hence the need for a command, general supervision and the distribution of tasks at the regional and provincial levels.
Morocco has accumulated extensive experience in securing major sporting events such as the Olympic Games in France, the World Cup in Qatar, and its recent partnership with Interpol. COP22 in Marrakech also allowed Morocco to showcase its expertise.
Ihsane Hafidi also mentioned the inauguration, on December 5th, of the Higher Institute of Security Sciences in Ifrane by Abdellatif Hammouchi, Director General of National Security and Territorial Surveillance. This new institution aims to strengthen and develop the security training system in Morocco. The creation of this institute is part of the strategy to strengthen academic security training in Morocco. It was necessary to consider developing a structure capable of keeping pace with the evolving nature of crime, both in Morocco and globally.
In the area of strategic counter-terrorism, the expert estimated that the Kingdom has achieved two major objectives. An intermediate objective, materialized by the dismantling of terrorist cells, and a strategic objective, which consists of preventing extremist groups from establishing territorial expansion within Morocco.
The expert noted that, unlike Al-Qaeda or ISIS, which have succeeded in establishing territorial cells (known as"wilayas" in ISIS terminology), Morocco has prevented this expansion. The dismantling of the last cell, Oussoud Al-Khilafa fi Bilad Al-Maghreb Al-Arabi, whose very aim was to establish itself on Moroccan soil, illustrates this strategic success. Finally, he highlighted the overall results: more than 200 cells have been dismantled by the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ) to date, and more than 700 people have been arrested thanks to the monitoring and surveillance of social media since 2016.
