Morocco intensified a public campaign asserting sovereignty over the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla this month, after large numbers of civilians crossed into Ceuta in what Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described as an attack on Spain's territorial integrity, according to a column published by the Spanish newspaper La Razón.
Sánchez said the crossing, which the column compared in scale to an army corps of civilians, amounted to a violation of Spanish sovereignty. The column described it as the most serious crisis facing Spain since the failed coup attempt of 23 February 1981, known in Spain as 23-F, but said the government has not identified who was behind the crossing or responded further to it.
Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish autonomous cities on the North African coast, both claimed by Morocco since it became independent in 1956. They have long been a flashpoint between Madrid and Rabat, particularly over migration across the land border.
Justice minister's comments
Morocco's Justice Minister, Abdellatif Ouahbi, addressed the crossing in an interview with the Saudi-owned network Al Arabiya. Asked about videos in which people who crossed the border said Moroccan authorities had turned a blind eye, Ouahbi said Morocco was following the matter as a whole and that he had been in the north of the country at the time, where he saw many young people, children and teenagers heading toward Ceuta.
He said entering into direct confrontation with them could have caused many casualties, and that Morocco had instead managed the crisis with intelligence, serenity and responsibility.
Ouahbi said some of the young people had told him they wanted to enter Ceuta because they considered it Moroccan, and asked how he could have stopped them thinking that way. He described the crossing as an exercise of a constitutional right to move within Moroccan territory.
He added that the only lasting solution would require reaching an agreement with Spain, adopting definitive decisions and establishing permanent procedures, a reference to negotiations touching on Spanish sovereignty. According to the column, the Spanish government has not responded to the remarks.
Online sovereignty campaign
The column said Morocco has claimed Ceuta and Melilla since its founding as an independent state in 1956, but that the campaign has never been pursued with the intensity seen since the mass crossing. It described social media accounts and Moroccan media pushing the claim, including influencers riding jet skis around the disputed rock formations, and accounts asserting that Umayyad rule over the Iberian Peninsula was in fact Moroccan rule, that Seville's Giralda tower is a copy of a tower in Rabat, and that the Alhambra in Granada is owed to Morocco.
Think tank's warnings
The column also pointed to Defense Atlas, a think tank it described as operating within a logic of hybrid information warfare aligned with Morocco's defence agenda, which it said is used to pressure Algeria diplomatically and to justify Moroccan military moves to allies including Spain and the United States.
On Sunday, Defense Atlas published a message saying military estimates and security analyses indicated the Spanish army would not be able to stop any Moroccan military movement toward what it called the occupied cities. It said the Moroccan army was capable of deploying rapidly, suddenly and overwhelmingly inside Ceuta, using advanced electronic warfare and search-and-engagement tactics against hostile forces, alongside plans to protect civilians.
Defense Atlas separately published a video, titled in Spanish "No hay moros en la costa. ¿Están seguros?" (roughly, "The coast is clear. Are you sure?"), showing images of submarines, divers and diver propulsion devices landing on a stretch of territory. The column described it as a direct psychological threat that, like the justice minister's remarks, drew no public response from Madrid.
