Morocco to begin producing armored vehicle turrets in defense deal linked to Israeli technology
Moroccan Military Industry will start delivering turrets for locally assembled 8x8 armored vehicles in March 2027. The company is also developing an anti-drone system as Morocco seeks to build a domestic arms industry and expand exports.
Moroccan Military Industry (MMI) will begin delivering armored vehicle turrets to the Moroccan army in March 2027, the company's general manager said on the sidelines of the Marrakech Air Show.
Sources at the air show and earlier media reporting have said MMI is closely linked to Israel's Elbit Systems and uses its technology. MMI itself told Reuters it is a Moroccan defense company, a characterization that leaves the precise nature of the relationship with Elbit unaddressed on the record.
MMI has agreed with Morocco's defense administration to produce the turrets for 8x8 armored vehicles assembled locally by India's Tata, along with the related ammunition, general manager Kaduri Naor told Reuters. The company operates a weapons-systems facility in the Midparc industrial zone near Casablanca, and is setting up a second plant in Sidi Yahya, north of Rabat, to manufacture medium- and large-caliber ammunition.
Naor said MMI is also developing an anti-drone variant of the same turret, aimed at a global market he described as growing quickly as militaries look for cheaper ways to counter unmanned aerial threats. "The threat is very cheap... defense systems are more expensive," he said, calling MMI's approach "cost-effective." The anti-drone ammunition, to be produced in Morocco, is designed to use a small radar to detect an incoming drone and trigger an explosion that disperses tungsten fragments to destroy the target. MMI is separately developing a self-propelled mortar system that can be mounted on vehicles.
Naor said the company hopes to use Morocco as a platform for exports, telling Reuters: "We will have a European NATO country to export to," without naming the customer. He said 99% of MMI's staff, including its engineers, are Moroccan
The turret agreement is the latest step in a defense-industrial relationship that began after Morocco and Israel restored diplomatic ties in 2020 and signed a formal defense cooperation pact in 2021, opening the way for collaboration in air defense, artillery, drones and manufacturing. Since then, the relationship has moved beyond Morocco simply purchasing Israeli equipment, Elbit has already supplied the Royal Armed Forces with Hermes-900 drones and the PULS rocket artillery system, toward co-production on Moroccan soil. Israel Aerospace Industries' subsidiary BlueBird Aero Systems runs a local drone program, "SpyX," out of a facility in Benslimane, training Moroccan technicians to operate its WanderB-VTOL and ThunderB-VTOL surveillance systems. Other Israeli firms, including Rafael, UVision and XTEND, have also shown systems at the Marrakech exhibition, held under Israel's SIBAT defense-cooperation framework.
