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RT – October 11, 2026
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ignored allegations of “very well-documented” NATO war crimes brought before it, former Libyan Information Minister Moussa Ibrahim has told RT.
In an interview on Saturday, he argued that the US-led military bloc has never been held accountable for what he described as “very well-documented” crimes committed during military interventions in several countries.
“In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, we have literally… millions of documents, videos, footage, statements, witnesses who testify to the crimes against humanity committed by NATO collectively and NATO countries individually,” he said.
The former minister said he had personally participated in a 2013 effort to bring allegations of NATO war crimes before the ICC over the bloc’s 2011 intervention in Libya, which left the country devastated and deeply divided.
“We presented a very powerful profile of thousands and thousands of pages. And it was not even allowed to be seen or heard or discussed. It was dismissed right away,” Ibrahim said, adding that prominent European human rights lawyers had been involved in preparing the case.
The failure to pursue such cases demonstrated the “limitation” of the system, he said, urging the East, particularly China and Russia to “rethink the whole equation.”
The ICC needs to be “radically, not superficially” reformed or replaced with a new international judicial institution capable of upholding human rights without Western political interference, he stressed. A handful of powerful Western countries currently exploit the ICC for their own advantage while ensuring “that they are immune against any cases brought forward against them,” he said.
The remarks come just days after Washington imposed sweeping new sanctions on the court after accusing it of overstepping its jurisdiction in pursuing alleged crimes involving American and Israeli nationals. The move followed the ICC’s 2024 issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the ICC’s investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by American forces during the US-led war in Afghanistan never resulted in criminal charges against US personnel.
Watch the RT segment.
Thomas Sankara had a signature look: a natty red beret, worn with military fatigues. A striking figure, Sankara was a military officer and the radical, anti-imperialist prime minister of the Republic of Upper Volta. His arrest in 1983 led to demonstrations, followed by a coup, after which Sankara was released and installed as president. By the following year Sankara had given the country he now led its new name — Burkina Faso. He fashioned a Burkinabè identity in his own anti-imperialist image, eschewing French for local languages, promoting economic self-reliance and national pride.
In 1986, he famously took the then French president François Mitterrand to task in a fiery speech broadcast both in Burkina Faso and France. Sankara’s dashing uniform played an outsized role in how his words were interpreted. Here was Africa’s own Che Guevara. But by October 1987, Sankara was dead, killed during a military coup led by his former friend and ally Blaise Compaoré.
France, the old colonial power, backed Compaoré. Soon after the coup, French officials once again flocked to Ouagadougou, helping to prop up Compaoré for decades.
This potted history is important to understanding the phenomenon of Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso’s current president, an authoritarian head of state who in his charisma and self-presentation so deliberately echoes Sankara.
On September 30, thousands of Burkinabè gathered in Ouagadougou’s Place de la Révolution to hail Traoré on the fourth anniversary of the coup that brought him to power. As the second coming of Sankara, Traoré — whatever their entirely different political ideologies – is arguably the face of contemporary African anti-imperialism. It is a meticulously cultivated image that has almost nothing to do with Traoré’s actual record, or his achievements in Burkina Faso.
Traoré is a pan-African leader for a digital age, an autocrat who has suspended his country’s constitution, dismantled its admittedly fledgling democratic institutions and been accused of crimes against humanity, but who has used artificial intelligence, particularly deepfakes, to bury that record beneath a highly effective cyber cult of personality.
How do Burkinabè reconcile the man with the persona? And is Traoré a triumph of the algorithm, the kind of politician increasingly familiar from Ouagadougou to Delhi, Berlin, Buenos Aires, and of course Washington, DC?
Ibrahim Traoré came to power in September 2022. In his own telling, while Sankara was installed as president, Traoré led the putsch himself. By January 2023, Burkina Faso terminated its military accord with France, giving French special forces one month to leave the country. In June this year, Burkina Faso ended all diplomatic relations with France.
As Traoré turned away from France, he strengthened relations with Moscow. It’s in keeping with the pattern across the countries of the Sahel — Burkina Faso and its neighbours Mali and Niger — as the region’s colonial history with France has been swept clean by a broom held first by the mercenaries of the Wagner Group and latterly the Russian state itself, represented by the Africa Corps.
But in April and May 2026, Africa Corps forces were dealt a humiliating defeat in northern Mali by a combination of Tuareg separatists and allegedly Al-Qaeda linked Islamists. The Malian defence minister was assassinated in a suicide bombing at his home near the capital Bamako. With Russia so involved militarily in the Sahel countries, Ukraine has admitted to assisting rebel forces. Both Mali and Niger have cut diplomatic ties with Kyiv. And Burkina Faso has described Kyiv as a destabilising force in the region, making the Sahel effectively a front in Russia’s war with Ukraine. As recently as September, Traoré named Ukraine as a part of Burkina Faso’s “map of enemies” for which, he added menacingly, “we need to prepare.”
Russia, as Coda Story has reported for years, has used everything from weapons sales to mercenaries to paying African influencers to both spread Russian narratives and hold Moscow up as the alternative to continuing to rely on exploitative economic relationships with the West, particularly erstwhile European colonialists.
Despite the extent of Russian attempts to influence the Sahel, it’s not Moscow that is signing the most consequential deals with the military juntas it helps prop up. It’s Beijing. And the deals being signed with China to mine the region’s extensive mineral wealth — the lithium, gold, copper, zinc, bauxite and uranium — have served as a reminder to the United States that it too should resume stalled relationships in the Sahel. Early in 2026, Burkina Faso signed a near $150 million healthcare deal with the U.S. in exchange, it appeared, for favourable access to minerals. Both Zambia and Zimbabwe backed away from similar deals, expressing concern about U.S. demands for data and minerals that amounted to an infringement of sovereignty.
The deals with China and the United States are being negotiated alongside a drive to reduce reliance on foreign loans and grants and ramp up domestic production, particularly of gold. Traoré claims his economic policies emphasise nationalisation and self-reliance. His government has taken over major mining operations and increased state stakes in other industries. In early 2024, his administration suspended export permits for small-scale gold production to crack down on smuggling and keep mineral wealth inside the country. Last month, he inaugurated Burkina Faso’s first gold refinery.
Some of this has had positive economic effects. The World Bank, in a June 2026 update, said the country had an estimated 5.3% growth in 2025, up from 4.8% in 2024, and its fiscal deficit narrowed from 5.8% of GDP to 1.8%. Inflation was also negative, 0.5%, compared to 4.2% in 2024. Reports by the World Bank and IMF have ascribed these growth to external factors such as the gold rally, climate-driven increase in agricultural outputs, and reduction in energy prices.
Economic growth, though, is part of a larger story that includes a crackdown on the press, particularly critical coverage of alleged human rights violations. Human Rights Watch documented 1,840 civilian deaths between January 2023 and April 2025, over 1,200 of which were directly attributed to government forces. Even as the report acknowledged widespread violations by Islamist groups, the actions of the Burkina Faso military, it said, “amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.” At the same time, Traoré has clamped down on Burkinabè civil society, banning over 100 human rights organizations and dissolving all political parties.
None of it appears to have affected his carefully-honed image in certain online spaces.
Traoré is everywhere. In Accra, the capital of Ghana, his image is pasted onto buses and in parks. In January 2025, at the swearing-in of the Ghanaian president John Mahama, it was Traoré who the crowd responded to, cheering for a rockstar rather than a head of state. Even Mahama joked that Traoré had stolen the show. Artwork celebrating Traoré is frequently posted online. The commentary that accompanies the art is gushing. “Through this artwork,” reads one Facebook tribute, “I celebrate the spirit of a man who stands for sovereignty, truth, and the rise of a self-determined Africa.”
Meanwhile, the Ivory Coast government has granted refugee status to at least 69,000 Burkinabè fleeing Burkina Faso.
In May, when I travelled to Ghana and Ivory Coast to talk to people displaced from Burkina Faso, at least five sources decided they no longer wanted to speak. Guaranteeing anonymity didn’t seem to matter. A Burkinabè journalist who was helping me find people to speak to, stopped responding to my messages the day after I arrived in Accra. Those who did speak to me refused to be quoted for fear that harm would come to family and friends left behind in Burkina Faso.
Reporters have been intimidated into silence. “Today, any journalist living in the country is forced to practice self-censorship to avoid being arrested,” says Harouna Simbo Drabo, disinformation analyst and Director of Programs & Partnerships of Faso Check. “Burkinabé journalists have two options,” he told me, “either practice self-censorship or go into exile.” After threats to his life, Drabo has left Burkina Faso.
He’s one of the luckier journalists. Since 2022, at least seven Burkinabè reporters have been forcibly conscripted into the army after criticizing the Traoré junta's crackdown on the press. Guezouma Sanogo, Boukari Ouoba, and Luc Pagbelguem were abducted days after their union denounced state media as "instruments of propaganda." Atiana Serge Oulon, editor-in-chief of L'Événement, is among the disappeared. Many, like Drabo, have either left Burkina Faso or quit their jobs.
As conditions deteriorate, what information is becoming available is government propaganda amplified by social media linked to Russian misinformation. In the absence of accurate, verified information, there is inevitably only disinformation. For instance, one of the most persistent pieces of disinformation is the story that Traoré — a supposedly avowed anti-imperialist despite his kowtowing to Moscow, Beijing and Washington — rejected billions of dollars in International Monetary Fund handouts because he believes, à la Thomas Sankara, in economic self-reliance. It is a story that has been debunked but was repeatedly told to me by Traoré supporters, including at least one journalist.
The claim was cited more than 700 times in a single three-day window in January 2025 alone, racking up millions of views across Facebook, X, and TikTok. Dubawa fact-checked the story and found that rather than rejecting money from the IMF, the Burkina Faso government had negotiated a 48-month IMF loan program in September 2023 and drew on World Bank financing in 2024.
By mid-2025. Code for Africa's analysis found social media in sub-Saharan Africa flooded with AI-generated videos casting Traoré alongside Beyoncé, Rihanna, and, in one particularly unhinged iteration, Pope Leo XIV, all of whom supposedly endorsed him as a Pan-African hero holding the line against the West. After US AFRICOM commander Michael Langley criticized Traoré's handling of Burkina Faso’s gold reserves in a Senate hearing, a network of 165 Facebook accounts began posting identical language claiming Putin had deployed special forces to protect Traoré from an American assasination plot. In ten days it pulled 10.9 million views.
In Accra, I caught a bus with a picture of Traoré emblazoned on the side. The driver, who only identified himself as Kofi, insisted that before we spoke I should tell him what I thought of Traoré. I say I am not Burkinabè, that I have not visited Burkina Faso but that I have spoken to many people whose lives have been upended by Traoré’s strongman politics. I told him about Burkinabè journalists in exile, forced to join the army, or even disappeared. I told him that when asked about a transition to democracy, Traoré said it was important for Burkinabè to “forget” about democracy. “We have to tell the truth,” Traoré said, “democracy isn’t for us.” I told him about the Burkinabè refugees I met in Treichville, a district in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast capital.
Kofi listened and then told me that “good things take sacrifice,” including the death of a free press. When I asked what he meant by good things, he showed me AI-generated videos of a smart city Traoré had supposedly built.
African identity is tightly wound around the belief that the continent has more potential than it has achieved. The deficit can be attributed to a lot of issues, but chiefly to Western exploitation and the complicity of African leaders. “African countries have also fallen into autocratic democracy,” Sanusi Sanusi, Research Analyst at the Digital Tech, AI & Information Disorder Analysis Centre, DAIDAC, tells me. “There is an election every couple of years but it isn't free or fair.”
Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, writes that “disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information — misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information — information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing.”
Many Traoré supporters I spoke with, most of whom were men, were convinced they knew things I did not. They told me to educate myself more on Western hypocrisy in Africa. They said they did not have faith in those who appointed themselves arbiters of what was fact and what was disinformation. In Lagos I met Lemi Ghariokwu, who designed album covers for the iconic Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, a revolutionary figure. Ghariokwu, who has a portrait of Ibrahim Traoré hanging in his studio, told me that “Western education and propaganda has made our elite class toothless bulldogs.” Listening to them, it seemed as if a successful Africa needed strongmen, needed autocrats.
In Abidjan, the last person I spoke to about Traoré was Oumar, a Burkinabè taxi driver who had moved to the Ivorian capital in 2021. He told me he “supports Traoré with all my heart.” But as we talked, he admitted he had not been back home because “things are only getting worse.” Three Burkinabè refugees I spoke to told me they thought I might be a government agent planted among them to find out what they really thought about Traoré and that I would then report those thoughts back to Ouagadougou.
Many of the Traoré supporters I spoke with thought I was brainwashed by Western media or, worse, too docile to participate in an African revolution. For my part, I thought they were ill-informed and unable or, worse, unwilling to see through propaganda.
The fundamental curse of the age of information and connection is that we rarely confront how the mediums meant to unite us have fractured us. An unprecedented flood of data has shattered shared reality into millions of customized, mutually hostile subcultures.
With the help of AI and social media, Traoré has managed to decouple national and anti-imperial pride from government performance. By the middle of next year, Burkina Faso will no longer be part of the International Criminal Court, denounced by Traoré as an “instrument of neocolonial oppression”, and thus no longer accountable in any international forum. His government has said it is “decolonizing” the school curriculum. Cheered on by social media, Traoré has used anti-imperial grievances and resentments to argue that authoritarian military rule is the only safeguard for sovereignty.
As some Burkinabè exiles told me ironically, they thought both I, so sceptical of Traoré, and the Traoré die-hards in the African diaspora could use a few months living in Burkina Faso. We should, they said, experience the country Traoré has made IRL. See past the carefully curated myth of the man himself, the largely online fantasy of the pan-African, anti-imperial revolutionary who needs to break a few eggs to make the omelet, and assess the country he runs unchallenged.
Olatunji Olaigbe
Adam Shatz
Irina Matchavariani
The post The cyber-fueled cult of Ibrahim Traoré appeared first on Coda Story.
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Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers
A controversial research trial that will withhold hepatitis B vaccines from some African newborns was given approval to move forward this week.
It is a central part of the vaccine vision for Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine opponent.
This article was amended on 13 October 2026. A previous version said CIDRAP first reported news that the research trial was approved by the Denmark ethics committee. Rolling Stone had actually reported the news first.
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© Photograph: Jeffrey Davis/Getty Images/Tetra images RF
© Photograph: Jeffrey Davis/Getty Images/Tetra images RF
© Photograph: Jeffrey Davis/Getty Images/Tetra images RF
Le elezioni legislative marocchine hanno ridisegnato gli equilibri tra i partiti: il PAM conquista il primato, l’RNI arretra e il PJD torna protagonista. Ma l’astensione e il ruolo della monarchia mostrano i limiti dell’alternanza, mentre il Sahara Occidentale resta escluso da ogni processo decisionale.
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
Le elezioni legislative marocchine del 23 settembre hanno prodotto una significativa ricomposizione degli equilibri parlamentari senza mettere in discussione l’architettura fondamentale del sistema politico del Regno. Il Partito Autenticità e Modernità (Parti Authenticité et Modernité, PAM) è diventato la prima formazione della Camera dei rappresentanti con 97 seggi su 395, superando il Raggruppamento Nazionale degli Indipendenti (Rassemblement National des Indépendants, RNI), che dopo cinque anni alla guida del governo è sceso da 102 a 66 deputati. Il Partito dell’Istiqlal (Parti de l’Istiqlal) si è collocato immediatamente dietro con 65 seggi, mentre il Partito della Giustizia e dello Sviluppo (Parti de la Justice et du Développement, PJD) ha realizzato la rimonta più consistente, passando dai 13 rappresentanti del 2021 a 54.
La distribuzione dei seggi permette di individuare contemporaneamente una sconfitta dell’esperienza di governo uscente e una continuità più profonda: il PAM, infatti, aveva governato insieme all’RNI e all’Istiqlal nel corso della legislatura appena conclusa. Il suo avanzamento da 87 a 97 deputati rappresenta quindi soprattutto un riequilibrio interno all’area che ha amministrato il Paese negli ultimi cinque anni. Il cambiamento più marcato riguarda invece l’RNI dell’ormai ex capo del governo Aziz Akhannouch, che perde 36 seggi, mentre l’Istiqlal ne perde sedici.
Il risultato ha portato Muhammad VI, il 29 settembre, a nominare Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri capo del governo incaricato, in applicazione dell’articolo 47 della Costituzione, che impone al sovrano di scegliere il capo dell’esecutivo all’interno del partito arrivato primo alle elezioni della Camera dei rappresentanti. El Mansouri, coordinatrice della direzione collegiale del PAM, già ministra dell’Assetto territoriale e sindaca di Marrakech, è la prima donna nella storia marocchina a ricevere l’incarico di guidare il governo.
Il PAM conquista il primato, ma non produce una rottura
La vittoria relativa del PAM deve essere interpretata all’interno delle caratteristiche specifiche del sistema politico marocchino. Fondato nel 2008 da Fouad Ali El Himma, stretto collaboratore e consigliere di Mohammed VI, il partito è stato fin dall’origine una componente importante dello spazio politico vicino alla monarchia. La sua affermazione non corrisponde dunque a un’alternanza paragonabile a quella che avviene nei sistemi parlamentari nei quali il controllo dell’esecutivo comporta anche la direzione complessiva della politica dello Stato.
Il PAM, come ricordato in precedenza, aveva partecipato direttamente anche al governo Akhannouch, e resta dunque inserito nello stesso quadro istituzionale. La differenza tra i due partiti può essere rilevante nelle politiche sociali, nell’organizzazione della spesa pubblica, nelle priorità economiche o nella distribuzione delle responsabilità ministeriali, ma è molto meno marcata sui dossier strategici che dipendono direttamente dalla monarchia.
La Costituzione del 2011 attribuisce infatti al re funzioni che vanno ben oltre quelle normalmente esercitate da un capo dello Stato parlamentare. Muhammad VI è definito capo dello Stato e garante dell’integrità territoriale; presiede il Consiglio dei ministri, nel quale vengono stabiliti gli orientamenti strategici della politica dello Stato, ed è comandante supremo delle Forze Armate Reali. Presiede inoltre il Consiglio superiore di sicurezza, competente sulle strategie di sicurezza interna ed esterna.
La differenza tra alternanza governativa e alternanza del potere risulta quindi essenziale per comprendere il voto del 23 settembre. Il PAM assume la guida dell’esecutivo, ma la politica estera, la difesa, la sicurezza e le grandi direttrici strategiche rimangono settori nei quali il Palazzo conserva un ruolo determinante.
Il ritorno del PJD
Se il PAM è la prima forza parlamentare, il cambiamento numericamente più rilevante riguarda il PJD. Nel 2021, infatti, il partito islamista aveva subito una sconfitta eccezionale, precipitando da 125 seggi ottenuti nel 2016 ad appena 13. Cinque anni dopo torna a risalire fino a quota 54 deputati, recuperando 41 seggi e ricostruendo una presenza parlamentare significativa.
Secondo gli analisti, il ritorno di Abdelilah Benkirane alla guida della formazione ha contribuito a restituire al PJD una capacità di mobilitazione che sembrava compromessa dopo il tracollo del 2021. Il risultato non porta però il partito verso una nuova partecipazione al governo: il PJD ha annunciato la propria collocazione all’opposizione e Benkirane ha anche rifiutato di partecipare alla consultazione convocata da El Mansouri presso la sede del PAM, contestando il luogo scelto per il confronto.
Il dato segnala comunque che l’esperienza del 2021 non aveva cancellato l’elettorato islamista. Una parte consistente degli elettori che aveva abbandonato il PJD dopo gli anni trascorsi al governo è tornata a sostenerlo in una fase nella quale il partito può nuovamente presentarsi come forza di opposizione.
La dinamica è particolarmente interessante perché ribalta in parte quella verificatasi cinque anni fa. Nel 2021 il crollo del PJD aveva aperto la strada all’ascesa dell’RNI; nel 2026 è l’RNI a perdere una parte considerevole della propria rappresentanza mentre il PJD recupera gran parte dello spazio perduto.
L’astensione come dato strutturale
Il risultato più significativo per comprendere il rapporto tra istituzioni e società resta tuttavia quello della partecipazione.
Secondo il ministero dell’Interno, l’affluenza ufficiale è stata del 38,02%, contro circa il 50% registrato nel 2021. Il dato assume un peso ancora maggiore se confrontato con la dimensione delle liste elettorali: a fronte di circa 27 milioni di cittadini potenzialmente aventi diritto, soltanto 15,8 milioni risultavano registrati, una cifra diminuita di circa il 12% rispetto alla precedente consultazione.
Il problema appare particolarmente marcato tra i giovani. Nelle settimane precedenti al voto, soltanto il 3% dei cittadini tra i 18 e i 24 anni risultava iscritto nelle liste elettorali. Lo stesso gruppo sociale è stato protagonista negli ultimi anni di manifestazioni legate alla disoccupazione, alla qualità dei servizi pubblici, alle difficoltà abitative e alla distribuzione delle risorse, mentre gli ingenti investimenti destinati alle infrastrutture per i Mondiali di calcio del 2030 sono diventati uno dei termini del dibattito pubblico.
Le elezioni mostrano quindi un sistema partitico capace di produrre spostamenti consistenti al proprio interno, ma solo nell’ambito di un corpo elettorale registrato e partecipante relativamente ristretto rispetto alla popolazione complessivamente in età di voto. Il problema, infatti, non riguarda soltanto quale partito governi, ma il grado di identificazione di ampi settori della società con gli stessi meccanismi della rappresentanza politica.
Anche per questo, l’incarico affidato a El Mansouri contiene due dimensioni differenti. Da una parte costituisce un cambiamento significativo nella rappresentanza di genere ai vertici dell’esecutivo; dall’altra il nuovo governo dovrà confrontarsi con la stessa distanza tra società e istituzioni che l’affluenza del 23 settembre ha reso evidente.
Una sinistra frammentata, ma con un nuovo spazio parlamentare
Il voto offre indicazioni interessanti anche sullo stato della sinistra marocchina.
L’Unione Socialista delle Forze Popolari (Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires, USFP) scende da 34 a 26 seggi, mentre il Partito del Progresso e del Socialismo (Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme, PPS) passa da 22 a 19. Il PPS, in particolare, rappresenta la forza erede del Partito Comunista Marocchino, fondato negli anni Quaranta, passando per il Partito della Liberazione e del Socialismo fino alla costituzione del PPS nel 1974.
Accanto a queste formazioni emerge però l’Alleanza della Sinistra (Alliance de la Gauche), costituita nel giugno 2026 dal Partito Socialista Unificato (Parti Socialiste Unifié, PSU) e dalla Federazione della Sinistra Democratica (Fédération de la Gauche Démocratique, FGD). La coalizione ha conquistato otto seggi, contro i due complessivi detenuti dalle due componenti nella legislatura precedente. I suoi documenti programmatici insistono sulla democratizzazione delle istituzioni, sulla giustizia sociale e sulla riduzione delle disuguaglianze.
Anche l’Alleanza ha scelto una collocazione distinta rispetto al processo di formazione del governo. Il 1° ottobre ha sospeso l’incontro previsto con El Mansouri dopo aver chiesto che le consultazioni si svolgessero in una sede istituzionale neutrale anziché nel quartier generale del PAM.
Il Sahara Occidentale resta un dossier dello Stato
Per quanto riguarda la questione del Sahara Occidentale, essa non è oggetto di una competizione sostanziale tra le principali forze marocchine paragonabile a quella che riguarda politiche fiscali, occupazione o servizi pubblici. La rivendicazione della sovranità marocchina e il piano di autonomia costituiscono un orientamento strategico dello Stato sostenuto trasversalmente dai principali partiti, comprese le formazioni collocate all’opposizione, anche della sinistra radicale.
Ciò significa che l’esito elettorale non modifica la linea seguita da Rabat nei confronti della Repubblica Araba Saharawi Democratica e del Fronte Polisario. La questione rientra infatti precisamente fra quelle nelle quali il ruolo della monarchia e delle strutture permanenti dello Stato prevale sull’alternanza parlamentare.
Il contesto internazionale rafforza questa continuità. Il 16 settembre, appena una settimana prima delle elezioni, Marocco e Israele hanno concordato di elevare le proprie rappresentanze diplomatiche al rango di ambasciate. In una dichiarazione trilaterale con Washington, Stati Uniti e Israele hanno contemporaneamente riaffermato il riconoscimento della sovranità marocchina sul Sahara Occidentale e il sostegno al piano di autonomia proposto da Rabat (con esclusione, quindi, della soluzione indipendentista). Questo conferma il legame strategico fra Rabat, Washington e Tel Aviv, che abbiamo già analizzato rispetto agli Accordi di Abramo, alla crisi di Ceuta e alla progressiva internazionalizzazione della posizione marocchina sul Sahara Occidentale.
Un voto di ricomposizione più che di trasformazione sistemica
Le elezioni del 23 settembre delineano quindi un quadro più articolato di una semplice vittoria del PAM.
L’RNI paga il logoramento di cinque anni di governo e perde oltre un terzo della propria rappresentanza parlamentare; il PAM consolida la propria posizione e conquista il diritto costituzionale di esprimere il capo del governo; il PJD recupera una parte consistente dell’elettorato perduto nel 2021; la sinistra tradizionale arretra mentre una nuova alleanza alla sua sinistra amplia la propria presenza. Soprattutto, l’affluenza del 38,02% segnala che la competizione tra i partiti si svolge in presenza di una marcata distanza di una parte della popolazione dalle istituzioni elettorali.
Il voto modifica, pertanto, gli equilibri nella Camera e nella futura coalizione, ma non modifica automaticamente il centro istituzionale nel quale vengono definite le principali strategie dello Stato marocchino. La Costituzione del 2011, da un lato, ha ampliato il ruolo del capo del governo e del Parlamento rispetto al passato, ma dall’altro mantiene nelle mani del sovrano prerogative decisive sulle grandi direttrici politiche, sulla sicurezza, sulla difesa e sull’integrità territoriale.
Tirando le somme, il nascente governo El Mansouri dovrà confrontarsi con disoccupazione giovanile, disuguaglianze territoriali, servizi pubblici e investimenti legati ai Mondiali del 2030; sul Sahara Occidentale, sui rapporti strategici con gli Stati Uniti e sulla progressiva normalizzazione con Israele, invece, il quadro appare caratterizzato da una continuità molto più marcata.
Just over two years after the U.S. Air Force retired the last of its KC-10A Extender aerial refueling tankers, four of those aircraft may be bound for a new career in North Africa for a mysterious end user.
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) put out a contracting notice yesterday “solely for information and planning purposes” with the express intent “to identify potential industry sources that possess the capability, expertise, and facilities to execute the regeneration, one-time flight clearance, depot-level return to service, worldwide ferry delivery, in-country Contractor Logistics Support (CLS), and operational/maintenance training for up to four (4) KC-10 Extender aircraft.”
The KC-10s could be “transferred via Excess Defense Articles (EDA) to a partner nation in North Africa,” the notice adds, without naming the country in question.
The Air Force operated KC-10s between 1981 and 2024. TWZ has reached out to the U.S. Air Force, as well as the U.S. State Department, for more information. The State Department directed us to contact the Pentagon.
The EDA program allows for materiel deemed extraneous to U.S. military needs to be transferred to allies and partners either at a reduced cost or as a grant. The foreign nation in question has to pay for those assets to be delivered, as well as refurbishment, if applicable.
It is important to note here that the Extender, as designed, is capable of refueling receivers using either the boom or the probe-and-drogue method. Tankers equipped for the probe-and-drogue method are, by far, more common internationally. We will come back to this later on.
While we don’t know what the North African country might be in line now to receive the quartet of KC-10s, Egypt and Morocco would seem to be the most likely candidates based on their current and planned aircraft inventories. They are also both major U.S. allies.
The Egyptian Air Force currently does not operate any dedicated aerial refueling tankers. The country is in the process of acquiring two new C-130J-30 Hercules aircraft for use as airlifters, as well as tankers, using the probe-and-drogue method. It does already fly C-130s, but none explicitly configured for aerial refueling duties. Egypt also has a very diverse array of fighters that includes U.S.-made F-16 Vipers that can only be refueled in mid-air via boom.
Morocco’s Air Force also flies F-16s and is in the process of acquiring more. The first new-production Block 72 F-16D for the Moroccan Air Force just flew for the first time earlier this week. Morocco does have an organic aerial refueling capability now, but in the form of C-130s equipped to dispense fuel via probe-and-drogue.
As mentioned, the KC-10 was designed to connect with receivers via probe-and-drogue, as well as boom, and could be used to refuel other tactical jets in Egyptian or Moroccan service. As an aside, fighters belonging to both regularly receive foreign tanker support during exercises, as already seen earlier in this story. Just last month, Chinese YY-20 tankers (also sometimes referred to as Y-20Us) notably did just this in an exercise in Egypt.
Footage released by Egypt’s official authorities from the “Eagles of Civilization 2026” joint air exercise shows Egyptian **MiG-29M/M2s and Rafale fighters receiving aerial refueling from a Chinese Y-20 tanker aircraft. pic.twitter.com/pvxkpsDHxG
— 笑脸男人 (@lfx160219) September 7, 2026
Whichever country may be in line to receive the four KC-10s, there is a question about the current state of those aircraft. Earlier in this story, we talked about the Extender’s capabilities as designed.
McDonnell Douglas (since absorbed into Boeing) delivered a total of 60 KC-10s to the U.S. Air Force between 1979 and 1987. The Extender was derived from the three-engine DC-10 airliner, the last of which was produced in 1989. The Air Force lost one of its KC-10s in an accident in 1987.
Of the remaining 59 KC-10s, 10 were put up for auction in a non-flyable state last year. For reasons that remain unclear, a single engine had been removed from under one of the wings of each of those aircraft. These Extenders were also among the first to be retired, and their booms had been stripped to be used as spares for the examples that remained in service until 2024. Private aerial refueling contractor Omega Air looks to have subsequently won those auctions. Omega also operates two ex-Dutch KDC-10 tankers, which are broadly similar to the KC-10, as well as another DC-10 converted into a probe-and-drogue-only tanker. The company has several Boeing 707-based tankers, as well.
The condition of the remaining 49 Extenders is unclear. Congress included a provision in the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2026 Fiscal Year that required the Air Force to preserve remaining retired KC-10s, but only stipulated they be maintained “in the same storage condition” they were in as of September 30, 2025. The bill, which was signed into law in December 2025, also made clear that the Air Force could still “dispose” of the aircraft in accordance with existing property management statutes.
Regenerating military aircraft, especially larger ones, back to service can be costly, complex, and time-consuming, even when they are kept in storage in a highly maintained state. In this particular case, acquiring KC-10s via the EDA program, with a very low up-front purchase price, could still be attractive to the right buyer, especially compared to the cost of acquiring new-production tankers.
For a country like Egypt or Morocco that has never operated a boom-equipped tanker, second-hand Extenders could be a valuable entry point to future aerial refueling capabilities, as well. In general, organic aerial refueling capability is an important force multiplier for any air arm.
There is a possibility that KC-10s could be regenerated not as tankers, but as cargo aircraft, though this seems less likely to be the case. Cargo carrying was also an important duty for the Extenders while in U.S. Air Force service, and they still could operate in this role even when returned to service as tankers.
Though the aging KC-10s were getting increasingly more difficult to operate and maintain, the Air Force’s decision to retire them was still controversial. The Extender was a highly flexible tanker that could carry more fuel than the KC-46s that supplanted them. Clearly, there are others still interested in operating them.
It should be stressed that the AFLCMC contracting notice does not present the transfer of the four KC-10s as a done deal. At the same time, it has revealed that one of America’s partners in North Africa could breathe new life into four of these retired tankers.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
The post Retired KC-10 Extender Tankers Could Get A Second Life With North African Mystery Operator appeared first on TWZ.
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