Morocco-US military drills to kick off in March 2020
African Lion, the annual Moroccan-US military exercise, will take place in March 2020 with the participation of 2500 US soldiers, Moroccan media reported.
The games, which also bring together soldiers from other countries, are meant to improve interoperability and mutual understanding of participating armies tactics, techniques and procedures.
Besides Morocco and the US, soldiers from Egypt, Mauritania, Senegal, Tunisia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands and Portugal will take part in the military games, which also cover a medical readiness exercise, large-scale live-fire exercise in addition to air, maritime and forward command post training exercises, US command Africom said on its website.
The exercise will feature naval military drills as well as aerial exercises using F16 fighter jets and KC 135 aircrafts in addition to the deployment of paratroopers, Morocco’s le360 reported.
Spearheaded by US Army Africa and hosted by the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, African Lion 20 is a joint force headquarters-validating, partnership-strengthening, readiness-building, multinational, multi-domain and multi-functional exercise testing the warfighters’ ability to deploy, fight and win in a complex, competitive and global environment.
The exercise also aims at improving capacities in terms of countering violent extremist organizations, maintaining cross-border security and countering transnational threats.
