Royal Moroccan Armed Forces The Royal Moroccan Armed Forces are the summation of the armed forces of the kingdom of Morocco It was founded in 1956 ( except the Royal Navy founded in 1960 ) after Morocco ' s independence from France and Spain . Before the French and Spanish occupation of Morocco , which started in 1912 , the country ' s defence force was made of a regular Makhzen army , and of a less organized but much more powerful Berber tribes ' militias . These Berber militias were able to resist the French and Spanish armies for over 30 years , from 1907 to 1933 . Branches . The modern Moroccan military is structured into six different branches . Origins . During the period of the French protectorate of Morocco ( 1912 – 1956 ) large numbers of Moroccans were recruited for service in the Spahi and Tirailleur regiments of the French Army of Africa . During World War II more than 300 , 000 Moroccan troops ( including goumier auxiliaries ) served with the Free French forces in North Africa , Italy , France and Austria . The two world conflicts saw Moroccan units earning the nickname of " Todesschwalben " ( death swallows ) by German soldiers as they showed particular toughness on the battlefield . By the end of the World War II , Moroccan troops took part of the French Expeditionary Force engaged in the First Indochina War from 1946 to 1954 . The Spanish Army also made extensive use of Moroccan troops recruited in the Spanish Protectorate , during both the Rif War of 1921 - 26 and the Spanish Civil War of 1936 - 39 . Moroccan " Regulares " , together with the Spanish Legion , made up Spain ' s elite Spanish Army of Africa . A para - military gendarmerie , known as the " Mehal - la Jalifianas " and modelled on the French goumieres , was employed within the Spanish Zone . The Royal Armed Forces were created on 14 May 1956 , after the French Protectorate was dissolved . Fourteen thousand Moroccan personnel from the French Army and ten thousand from the Spanish Armed Forces transferred into the newly formed armed forces . This number was augmented by approximately 5 , 000 former guerrillas from the " Army of Liberation " ( see below ) . About 2 , 000 French officers and NCOs remained in Morocco on short term contracts , until crash training programs at the military academies of St - Cyr , Toledo and Dar al Bayda produced sufficient numbers of Moroccan commissioned officers . Four years later , the Royal Moroccan Navy was established in 1960 . The Royal Moroccan Army fought on the Golan front during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 ( mostly in the battle for Quneitra ) and intervened decisively in the 1977 conflict known as Shaba I to save Zaire ' s regime . The Armed Forces also took a symbolic part in the Gulf War among other Arab armies . But the Moroccan Armed Forces were mostly notable in fighting a 25 - year war against the POLISARIO , an Algerian backed rebel national liberation movement seeking the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco . From the mid - 1980s Morocco largely managed to keep Polisario troops off by building a huge berm or sand wall ( the Moroccan Wall ) , staffed by an army roughly the same size as the entire Sahrawi population , enclosing within it the economically useful parts of Western Sahara ( Bou Craa , El - Aaiun , Smara etc . ) . This stalemated the war , with no side able to achieve decisive gains , but artillery strikes and sniping attacks by the guerrillas continued , and Morocco was economically and politically strained by the war . On 14 July 1999 , the Moroccan Armed Forces took part in the Bastille Day parade on the Champs - Élysées , which was exceptional for a non - French armed forces , at the invitation of then French President Jacques Chirac . It is today taking part in several peace keeping missions : MONUC , ONUCI , EUFOR , KFOR and MINUSTAH . Previous peace - keeping missions included the Somalia operation , in which Moroccan personnel served as part of UNOSOM I , the Unified Task Force , and the follow - on UNOSOM II mission . Army of Liberation . The Army of Liberation ( Berber : Aserdas n Uslelli , ) was a force fighting for the independence of Morocco . In 1956 , units of the Army began infiltrating Ifni and other enclaves of Spanish Morocco , as well as the Spanish Sahara . Initially , they received important backing from the Moroccan government . In the Spanish Sahara , the Army rallied Sahrawi tribes along the way , and triggered a large - scale rebellion . In early 1958 , the Moroccan king reorganized the Army of Liberation units fighting in the Spanish Sahara as the " Saharan Liberation Army " . The revolt in the Spanish Sahara was put down in 1958 by a joint French and Spanish offensive . The king of Morocco then signed an agreement with the Spanish , as he asserted control over the rebellious southern border areas , and parts of the Army of Liberation was absorbed back into the Moroccan armed forces . Nationalistic Moroccans tend to see the Army of Liberation battles in Western Sahara as a proof of Western Sahara ' s loyalty to the Moroccan crown , whereas sympathizers to the Polisario Front view it only as an anti - colonial war directed against Spain . Sahrawi veterans of the Army of Liberation today exist on both sides of the Western Sahara conflict , and both the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic celebrate it as part of their political history . Motto . The Royal Moroccan Armed Forces motto , which graces every military base , banner , and ship , is : God - Nation - King .