Direction Générale De La Surveillance Du Territoire
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (; ; ; DGST) is the civilian domestic intelligence service of
Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
. It is tasked with the monitoring and anticipation of potentially subversive domestic activities. Since 2005, the DGST is led by Abdellatif Hammouchi, who also runs the country's national police force, the Sûreté Nationale (DGSN). The DGST was previously known as the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST).


Organizational structure

The DGST is under the administrative supervision of the
Ministry of Interior An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, th ...
and specializes in counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, and protection of economic and scientific assets. It has a number of central services, led by the Cabinet of the Director-General, alongside a number of territorial brigades which constitute local representations of the DGST across the country and within some government departments. The DGST also has a special forces unit, the Rapid Intervention Group (GIR), which intervenes in counter-terrorism raids.


Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ)

The Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (, BCIJ; known colloquially as the Moroccan FBI) is the
law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...
branch of the DGST. Based in
Salé Salé (, ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Along with some smaller nearby towns, Rabat and Salé form together a single m ...
, it was founded in 2015 pursuant to a law passed following the 2011 Marrakesh bombing which gave officers of the DGST the same legal status as police officers. The BCIJ is subordinate to the DGST but under the supervision of the Public Prosecutor's Office. The BCIJ has an elite counter-terrorism unit led by the DGST as well as a unit fighting
organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...
under the supervision of the DGSN's National Judicial Police Brigade (BNPJ). The first chief of the BCIJ, Abdelhak Khiame, was '' chargé de mission'' at the Cabinet of the Director-General. In 2021, the BCIJ announced that they dismantled 86 terrorist cells, arresting 1,386 people since its creation in 2015.


Police for Radio Communications (PCR)

The Police for Radio Communications (, PCR), colloquially known as the "radio center", is the DGST's
signal intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly u ...
(SIGINT) directorate. The directorate intercepts thousands of communications per day, including phone calls, text messages, faxes, and e-mails. The PCR was founded in the 1960s under King Hassan II to help mitigate coup d'états against his rule. The DST sought American expertise to reform the PCR for Internet surveillance following the 2003 Casablanca attacks. In July 2008, twenty members of Morocco's
House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives (Japan), House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers (Japan), House of Peers. If the t ...
were arrested and found guilty of corruption following intelligence supplied by the DST from intercepted phone calls by the PCR. The few dozen technicians for the PCR are specialized in intercepting
communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a Transponder (satellite communications), transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a Rad ...
s, and cracking encrypted communications. The PCR reportedly provides daily reports of a few hundred selected intercepts from national and international communications to the DGST's Cabinet of the Director-General. As of 2010, the PCR is reported to have operated a computer system which allowed the DST to perform keyword searches from intercepted e-mails, phone calls through
speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. It is also ...
, and documents through
handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwriting, handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens ...
. According to these reports, system reportedly has automatic traffic sorting and has a dictionary of keywords, phone numbers, and e-mails of interest for monitoring.


History


Post-independence and Cold War

On May 16, 1956, a year after Morocco gained its independence, the General Directorate for National Security (; DGSN) was founded as the country's national police force and was modeled after the French National Police. Counter-subversion was led by the 7th police district in
Casablanca Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...
and was led by Houssine Seghir, a
plumber A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable (drinking) water, hot-water production, sewage and drainage in plumbing systems.
in the Mers Sultan district and ex-member of an anti-colonial resistance movement in Casablanca. In 1958, the DGSN was expanded with seven counter-subversion forces labeled "cabinets". The most notorious of these cabinets was ''Cabinet no. 1'' or CAB 1, which was the cabinet charged with political affairs. Among those cabinets was ''Cabinet no. 7'', known as CAB 7 or "the Seventh", which was tasked with interrogations. In the early 1960s, the CAB 1 became a fully-fledged intelligence service after a restructuring led by three
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
officers and French experts. King Hassan II, an ardent anti-communist, held close ties with Western intelligence services during the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
. According to Ahmed Boukhari, the CAB 1 had 300 agents and had brigades in six cities. The CAB 1 ran a number of secret prisons, which they codenamed "fixed points". In 2001, Boukhari implicated the CAB 1,
Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...
, and the French SDECE in the 1965 disappearance of
Mehdi Ben Barka Mehdi Ben Barka (; 1920 – disappeared 29 October 1965) was a Moroccan nationalist, Arab socialist, politician, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP) and secretary of the Tricontinenta ...
. In 1972, following two coup attempts against King
Hassan II Hassan, Hasan, Hassane, Haasana, Hassaan, Asan, Hassun, Hasun, Hassen, Hasson or Hasani may refer to: People *Hassan (given name), Arabic given name and a list of people with that given name *Hassan (surname), Arabic, Jewish, Irish, and Scotti ...
, the King dissolved the DGSN's "cabinets" including the CAB 1. On January 12, 1973, following the dismantling of the CAB 1 a year prior, a Royal Dahir was signed by King Hassan II creating the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (; DST). Modeled after its French counterpart, the Dahir set the DST's main responsibility as "safeguarding and protecting the security of the State and its institutions". he DST was also tasked with "looking for and to prevent, through the collection of intelligence, activities that are inspired, or undertaken or supported by subversive or terroris" while also being responsible for "responding to interference by external foreign agents". The same day, a military foreign intelligence service was created, the General Directorate for Studies and Documentation (; DGED), also modeled after the French SDECE. The DST and the DGED were both led by
Ahmed Dlimi Ahmed Dlimi (; 16 July 1931 in Zaggota, Sidi Kacem Province – 25 January 1983, Marrakesh) was a Moroccan general under the rule of Hassan II. After General Mohamed Oufkir's 1972 assassination, he became Hassan II's right-hand man. He led ...
until his death in 1983.


War on Terror

During the Global War on Terror, the DST held close cooperations with the CIA and provided an intelligence-gathering platform for the
Sahel The Sahel region (; ), or Sahelian acacia savanna, is a Biogeography, biogeographical region in Africa. It is the Ecotone, transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a ...
. In the 2000s, the DST held capabilities in technical eavesdropping and clandestine surveillance. In 2002, the DST received information regarding an
al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...
sleeper cell following intelligence received from an informant. After further investigation by the DST which involved eavesdropping, three Saudi nationals were arrested by the Royal Gendarmerie for planning to attack an American warship off the
Strait of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Fe ...
. In January 2004, the DST led to the arrest of three underage girls who were planning to commit suicide bombing attacks in Casablanca after information received from a local informant. In 2005, Abdellatif Hammouchi became the head of the DST, which he later renamed to DGST. The DGST holds a large network of personal informants, which they use to obtain
human intelligence Human intelligence is the Intellect, intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex Cognition, cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. Using their intelligence, humans are able to learning, learn, Concept ...
(HUMINT). The constant presence of the DGST has infused Moroccan society so deeply that informing the DGST has taken the status of a patriotic duty. In 2015, the DGST reportedly warned their French counterparts that ISIS leader
Abdelhamid Abaaoud Abdelhamid Abaaoud (; 8 April 1987 – 18 November 2015) was a Belgian-born Islamic terrorist who had spent time in Syria and was suspected of having organized multiple terror attacks in Belgium and France, and is known to have masterminded th ...
was in Greece. After the 2015 Paris attacks masterminded by Abaaoud, the DGST also reportedly informed French authorities about Abaaoud's whereabouts and gave information about the Belgian cell behind the attacks. Prior to the
2016 Berlin truck attack On 19 December 2016, a Vehicle-ramming attack, truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, leaving 12 people dead and 56 others injured. One of the victims was ...
, the DGST contacted the German
Federal Intelligence Service The Federal Intelligence Service (, ; BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin. The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign cou ...
(BND) regarding a terror cell in Berlin which included the perpetrator, Anis Amri. The DGST contacted the BND four times about Amri, who was named and marked as dangerous by the DGST, and provided information regarding his associates and links to ISIS alongside photographs of him. In 2021, the DGST announced that they had dismantled 213 terrorist cells since 2002. On 21 September 2022,
Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...
and
Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
have signed a joint declaration on sharing the information concerning
2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the 22nd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...
. On 24 October 2022,
Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
and
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
have agreed to expand security cooperation to halt organized crime, including
terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
,
human trafficking Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. This exploitation may include forced labor, sexual slavery, or oth ...
,
Cybercrime Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or Computer network, networks. It has been variously defined as "a crime committed on a computer network, especially the Internet"; Cyberc ...
, and
fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...
. On 8 September 2023, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 Mw hit
Marrakesh-Safi Marrakesh-Safi () is one of the twelve regions of Morocco.Jounaux.ma
Its popul ...
region of Morocco. DGST along with DGSN has announced it will contribute MAD 50 million to Special Fund for Managing Earthquake Effects.


Controversy

The DST is mired in many
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
allegations and scandals. As early as 2002 it operated the Temara interrogation centre, a black site for extraordinary renditions and interrogations on behalf of the United States. After the 2003 Casablanca bombings, the DST became involved in controversial interrogation methods to obtain confessions from suspects. After the 2011 Arab spring protest the secret detention centre is said to have been relocated to the Ain Aouda secret prison. Additionally, it has been revealed that the United States paid Morocco USD $20 million to build a secret detention centre sometime in 2004–2006. In 2010, Zakaria Moumni a former Moroccan Thai boxing champion, was arrested upon entering Morocco. later revealed that he Zakaria Moumni tortured and then imprisoned on trumped-up charges, on instructions from Mounir Majidi (the secretary of king Mohammed VI) and the head of the DST Abdellatif Hammouchi. and the US official at the same year Ali Aarras, a Belgian citizen, was extradited to Morocco from Spain where he was cleared of terrorism charges because of lack of evidence. After his extradition to Morocco and subsequent trial, he was condemned by judge Abdelkader Chentouf to 10-years in prison. The sentence was based on confessions, which according to Ali Aarras were obtained under torture. In February 2014, the director of the DGST Abdellatif Hammouchi, while on an official visit to France, was summoned by a French judge to answer for torture allegations in various cases, including the case of Zakaria Moumni and the Gdeim Izik protest camp suspects. This caused a diplomatic incident and vivid protestations from the Moroccan state apparatus who responded by suspending judicial cooperation accords with France. And announced that it will sue the plaintiffs for libel. However, the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior retracted all its lawsuits in France just days after filing them.


Directors


Counter-subversion department and CAB1

During this era the director of the DGSN was also the joint director of the CAB1. * Mohamed Laghzaoui (DGSN) 1956–July 1960 * Houssine Seghir (joint director of the political police) 1956 – July 1960 * Mohamed Oufkir (DGSN) July 1960 – 1970, then 1967–1971 as MOI. *
Ahmed Dlimi Ahmed Dlimi (; 16 July 1931 in Zaggota, Sidi Kacem Province – 25 January 1983, Marrakesh) was a Moroccan general under the rule of Hassan II. After General Mohamed Oufkir's 1972 assassination, he became Hassan II's right-hand man. He led ...
(CAB1) 1961–1966 then 1970–1973 (DGSN) *Abdelhak Achaachi 1967–1973 (coordinator) *Mohamed Achaachi (Head of counter-subversion unit in the CAB1 during the 1960s)


DST & DGST

*
Ahmed Dlimi Ahmed Dlimi (; 16 July 1931 in Zaggota, Sidi Kacem Province – 25 January 1983, Marrakesh) was a Moroccan general under the rule of Hassan II. After General Mohamed Oufkir's 1972 assassination, he became Hassan II's right-hand man. He led ...
1973 – January 1983 * Driss Basri January 1983 – 1999 * Hamidou Laanigri 1999–2003 * Ahmed Harari 2003–2005 * Abdellatif Hammouchi 2005–present ''Note'': In 2005 the DST was renamed DGST.


Notes


References

* {{Coord, 33.935027, -6.863535, display=title 1973 establishments in Morocco Government of Morocco Law enforcement in Morocco Moroccan intelligence agencies Government agencies established in 1973 Organizations based in Rabat