SUMMARY
[Note to reader: this Country page primarily contains brief information about state-based violence during the period 1946–1974, and to some extent 1975–1988. For more detailed information on organized violence after 1989, please consult the specific Conflict and Dyad pages available on the left-hand side of this page. These pages contain more detailed information regarding all three categories of organized violence in this country from 1989 and onwards (when applicable), as well as detailed information about state-based violence 1975–1988. The left-hand side menu also contains links to Actor pages for all groups involved in organized violence since 1989 in this country, as well as actors involved in state-based violence 1975–1988.]
At the beginning of the 20th century Morocco was one of few states in Africa that had preserved their independence. However, in 1904, France and Spain concluded an agreement that divided Morocco into a Spanish zone and a French zone and later established protectorates in their respective sectors.
In the 1930s a pro-independence movement emerged in Morocco and gained momentum after the Second World War. Istiqlal (Independence) strove for an independent Moroccan Republic and launched an extra-state armed conflict against France in 1953. After three years of fighting, France granted independence to its protectorate in 1956 and Morocco came under the rule of King Muhammad V. The same year, Spain ceded its northern zone to newly independent Morocco, except the cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
Having once been an empire covering the Sahara, Mauritania, southwestern Algeria and Mali, the concept of Greater Morocco based on these historic possessions was revived in independent Morocco. Covertly backed by the government, an armed group, the NLA (National Liberation Army), launched an extra-state conflict against Spain in 1957 over the remaining Spanish territories in the south of “Greater Morocco”: Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara), the Tarfaya strip and the small enclave Ifni. After successes on the battlefield against Spain, the NLA also pushed into neighboring Mauritania, a French colony. Supporting each other, the two colonial powers put down the NLA revolt in Spanish Sahara and Mauritania. However, Spain ceded the Tarfarya strip in 1958 and Ifni in 1969 to Morocco.
Morocco also tried to expand its territory into Algeria and occupied the mineral rich Algerian province of Tindouf in 1963. The Moroccan forces were soon pushed back by Algeria. Subsequently, the two parties to the interstate conflict agreed on a demilitarized zone and Morocco recognized the Algerian border in exchange for joint mineral exploitation in Tindouf.
Moreover, in 1974, Morocco renewed its claim to Spanish Sahara, where large reserves of phosphate had recently been discovered. Shortly thereafter Spain withdrew from its Saharan colonial holding, which was subsequently divided between Mauritania and Morocco. A Saharan pro-independence movement POLISARIO (Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y de Río de Oro, Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro) launched an intrastate conflict against the two countries. When Mauritania withdrew in 1979, Morocco took control over the whole of territory. Despite the confirmation of the right of self-determination of the Saharan people by both the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, Morocco kept control over the territory into the 21st century. Nonetheless, over 40 states recognize Western Sahara as an independent state.
The first Moroccan King Muhammad V and his descendents King Hassan II and King Muhammad VI, who ascended the throne in 1961 and in 1999 respectively, ruled the country by authoritarian means, despite Morocco becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1962. Under King Hassan’s reign in 1971, a group of army officers unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the monarch in a short intrastate conflict.
On 16 May 2003, a series of suicide bombings shattered the Moroccan city Casablanca. The one-sided killings were later attributed to the Moroccan Islamist movement Salafia Jihadia.
In 1991 Moroccan troops joined the United Nations-authorized coalition that backed Kuwait in the interstate conflict against Iraq.
Since 1946 Morocco has experienced the extra-state, interstate, intrastate and one-sided categories of UCDP organized violence.
