The General Directorate for Studies and Documentation (, DGED) is the foreign

intelligence agency An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of informa ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

, under authority of the Administration for National Defense. It is officially tasked with maintaining national security and the safety of national institutions. The current general director of the DGED is Mohammed Yassine Mansouri, who studied with

Mohammed VI Muhammad VI may refer to: * Muhammad Imaaduddeen VI (1868–1932), sultan of the Maldives from 1893 to 1902 * Mehmed VI (1861–1926), sultan of Ottoman Empire, from 1918 to 1922 * Mohammed VI of Morocco Mohammed VI ( ar, محمد الساد ...

at the

Royal College A royal college in some Commonwealth countries is technically a college which has received royal patronage and permission to use the prefix ''royal''. Permission is usually granted through a royal charter. The charter normally confers a constitut ...

and previously ran

Maghreb Arabe Press Maroc Agence Presse (known as MAP, french: Maroc Agence Presse) is the Moroccan state-owned official news agency. History and profile The agency was founded on 31 May 1959 by Mehdi Bennouna in Rabat. It was nationalized in 1973. The directo ...

. Mansouri was appointed to the position by Mohammed VI on February 14, 2005. The agency collaborates often with its internal counterpart, the

DGST The General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance ( ar, المديرية العامة لمراقبة التراب الوطني, ''Mudīriyyat Murāqabat al-Turāb al-Waṭaniy''; ; , commonly referred to as the DGST or the DST), is the internal ...

History

The DGED was created on January 12, 1973 under a Royal Dahir, in the aftermath of two failed coups against

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 ...

. It was modeled after the now-defunct French

Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...

. The directorate was ran by

Ahmed Dlimi Ahmad ( ar, أحمد, ʾAḥmad) is an Arabic male given name common in most parts of the Muslim world. Other spellings of the name include Ahmed and Ahmet. Etymology The word derives from the root (ḥ-m-d), from the Arabic (), from the ve ...

until his death in 1983. Dlimi previously ran the CAB-1, a political police unit during the Years of Lead that later became the

. Following Dlimi's death, General Abdelhak El Kadiri headed the DGED until his retirement in 2001. Following El Kadiri's retirement, Ahmed Harchi was appointed as the head of the DGED in July 2001. Mohammed Yassine Mansouri named the general director of the DGED by King Mohammed VI on February 14, 2005, becoming the first civilian to hold the title. The DGED caused controversy following the 2003 Casablanca bombings for its help in the arrest and conviction of six high-ranking politicians in the Justice and Development Party for complicity in the bombings. A reporter for

Al-Manar Al-Manar ( ar, المنار, ''al-Manār'', lit='' The Lighthouse'') is a Lebanese satellite television station owned and operated by the political party Hezbollah,

, a TV station affiliated with Hezbollah was also convicted under the same charges. In a 2009 interview, Mohammed Yassine Mansouri claimed that the spread of

Wahhabism Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

and

Shia Islam Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, m ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

as a threat, claiming that both ideologies were aggressive. In the same interview, Mansouri also claimed that

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb ( ar-at, تنظيم القاعدة في بلاد المغرب الإسلامي, Tanẓīm al-Qā'idah fī Bilād al-Maghrib al-Islāmī), or AQIM, is an Islamist militant organization (of al-Qaeda) that aims to o ...

was seen a major threat by Morocco. In 2014, a Twitter account named ''@chris_coleman24'' leaked documents and emails between Moroccan consulates and the DGED, the user claimed that their goal was to "destabilize Morocco". Arrêt sur Images claimed that some of the documents leaked by the user were falsified. Morocco's Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused "pro- Polisario organizations" with the complicity of the Algerian government of running the Twitter account. Algérie Presse Service claims that the user was a "famous American hacker". In 2017, the French IGPN arrested an officer of the

French Border Police French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...

for allegedly giving the DGED files on up to 200 people marked under a

Fiche S In France, a ''fiche S'' (English: S card) is an indicator used by law enforcement to flag an individual considered to be a serious threat to national security. The S stands for ''Sûreté de l'État'' ("state security"). It is the highest level of ...

, France's indicator for people deemed a threat to national security. In 2021, the IGPN claimed that members of the DGED had infiltrated the

French Council of the Muslim Faith The French Council of the Muslim Faith (french: Conseil français du culte musulman, usually abbreviated to CFCM), is a national elected body, to serve as an official interlocutor with the French state in the regulation of Muslim religious activi ...

Activities

The DGED states its official mission as "participating in maintaining the security of the kingdom, the state and its institutions". According a 2003 report by Maroc Hebdo, the DGED has 4,000 employees total, 60% of which are members of the Royal Armed Forces, the remaining being civilians. According to the same report, 5% of DGED employees are women, and there are an estimated 250 to 300 agents abroad working for the DGED. Mohamed Reda Taoujni, previous owner of the journal Assahra Al Ousbouiya, claimed that the DGED controlled his journal and had published articles to the journal and its online counterpart through pseudonyms. The DGED collaborates with foreign services in security and terrorism-related affairs, including exchange of information regarding specific Moroccans targeted by foreign services. According to Ali Lmrabet, the DGED was reported to have staff in consulates and embassies of Morocco, hence benefiting from

diplomatic immunity Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are recognized as having legal immunity from the jurisdiction of another country.

. Lmrabet adds that the DGED used journalists working for the

as agents, and journalists were allegedly tasked with sending wires to the DGED containing information they gathered.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Direction generale des etudes et de la documentation Government of Morocco Moroccan intelligence agencies Law enforcement in Morocco 1973 establishments in Morocco