Word: moroccans
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...last winter Morocco's King Hassan II and his trusted lieutenant, General Mohammed Oufkir, were in the seaside resort of Agadir, discussing an official visit by Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to nearby Mauritania. To the King's astonishment, Oufkir suddenly proposed that the Moroccan air force be used to assassinate Gaddafi, who had never made any secret of his antipathy toward Hassan. "If only we could find out Gaddafi's flight plan," asked Oufkir, "what would you think of sending an F-5 to smash into him in the middle of the desert...
...Calmly, the King reviewed the honor guard, chatted with Cabinet ministers and waiting foreign diplomats. Also waiting was Hassan's Defense Minister, General Mohammed Oufkir, 52. Ruthless, his eyes always hidden by dark glasses, Oufkir for more than a decade had been considered the strongest prop of the Moroccan monarchy. He gained international notoriety in 1965 for his role in the Paris kidnaping and presumed murder of the Moroccan Leftist Mehdi Ben Barka; a French court convicted Oufkir in absentia of the crime...
...crippled plane landed, Oufkir had been summoned to the telephone at the airport control tower. What was said over the phone was not revealed. But shortly after the King, with three of his four children, had sped away to his summer palace in a small black Renault-16, a Moroccan air force jet made four passes at the field, shooting up cars, scattering the honor guard, killing eight people and wounding 47. But once again, Hassan had escaped totally unscathed...
Elsewhere, loyal officers were moving fast to take the situation in hand. Kenitra Air Base (where some 700 American Air Force advisers and their families are stationed) was surrounded. The Moroccan base commander, Major Kouera el Ouafi, 35, parachuted from his F-5 and was arrested. Five other airmen fled in a helicopter to Gibraltar. The British turned them over to Moroccan authorities two days later. At the same time, hundreds of airmen at Kenitra were placed under arrest...
...Later, Moroccan sources said that Oufkir's plan had been to kill not only the King but his heirs as well. The King's plane was to have been shot down over water, thus appearing to be an accident. What about the phone call at the airport control tower? Presumably at that point Oufkir had realized that his plot had failed and he ordered the jets to strafe the King on the ground...