Marrakech – The inaugural drone academics class under African Lion 2026 graduated more than 20 service members from four nations at the Southern Zone Headquarters in Agadir on May 5, marking a first for the largest annual military exercise on the African continent.
Students from Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria, and the United States trained on cost-effective small unmanned aircraft systems across two simultaneous courses: an eight-day planner track and a 10-day operator track.
Instructors from the 7th Army Training Command led the sessions. US trainees came from the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the Utah Army National Guard’s 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne).
The planner course covered capabilities gap analysis, warfighting functions, airspace management, counter-UAS, and electronic warfare.
Students then moved to course of action development and mission rehearsals. The operator course spanned sUAS components, vehicle identification, meteorology, battery management, aerodynamics, night operations, camouflage and concealment, and four days of live flight.
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“Operators are leaving here able to plan a mission, fly several platforms, react to emergencies and provide commanders with real-time reconnaissance,” noted US Army Sgt. 1st Class Derrick Guyton, sUAS master trainer and noncommissioned officer in charge of the program.
“Planners are leaving able to integrate sUAS operations into the broader scheme of maneuver, from airspace deconfliction to targeting.”
The training also connected a live drone feed to the combined joint task force innovation cell, demonstrating real-time imagery capabilities in both training and operational settings. The setup supports a broader effort to compress the kill chain and sharpen how operational headquarters detect, assess, and engage targets.
US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll described the program as a direct expression of the Army’s transformation initiative. “Putting capability in the hands of the warfighter, experimenting and learning how Soldiers actually use it, is critical to this effort,” Driscoll stated. “This drone academy is the manifestation of that idea – U.S. Soldiers training shoulder to shoulder with our partners.”
Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding general of US Army Europe and Africa, cast the program as a model for partner-led security. “What we are seeing in African Lion are partner forces learning and using emerging technology together, so they can apply this capability against their own persistent security challenges,” Donahue said.
“This is a great example of partners stepping up, fusing intelligence and technology, and how we can enable them to take the lead on their own challenges and contribute to regional security.”
The drone academy is the opening chapter of a larger ambition. Donahue had already announced during the 13th African Land Forces Summit in Rome in March that the United States plans to establish a regional drone training center in Morocco.
Donahue described the center as a hub for identifying security challenges and assembling assets to solve them. “It is about a sustainable, enduring capability that, once we prove its effectiveness, we can take to other parts of Africa,” he told summit attendees.
Morocco’s terrain, open electromagnetic spectrum, and uncongested airspace make it a rare training environment difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Separately, Apache AH-64E helicopters operated by Morocco’s Royal Air Force conducted maneuvers during the exercise, illustrating the country’s expanding aerial capabilities within the AL26 framework.
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The exercise concluded with a high-level closing ceremony on May 7, attended by AFRICOM Commander Gen. Dagvin Anderson and FAR Inspector General Gen. Mohammed Berrid.
At the Southern Zone headquarters, Anderson decorated Berrid and Brig. Gen. Mohsine Bensdira, head of the zone’s 3rd Bureau, with the US Legion of Merit. The meeting between the two commanders, held on instructions of King Mohammed VI, addressed multiple dimensions of bilateral military cooperation, particularly joint operational training.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered a recorded address to participants, placing the exercise in strategic and historical context.
“Our partnership with Morocco is not new. Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the United States of America in 1777,” Hegseth recalled. He characterized African Lion 26 as “an innovation lab integrating artificial intelligence, robotics, and next-generation digital technologies into live, all-domain scenarios.”
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On the security rationale, Hegseth was direct. “To those who seek to destabilize this continent, our shared resolve is unbreakable, our capabilities are only growing, and we are ready to defend our common interests,” he declared.
Now in its 22nd edition, African Lion 2026 ran from April 20 to May 8 across sites in Morocco, Ghana, Senegal, and Tunisia. More than 5,600 civilian and military personnel from over 40 nations took part, with over 40 technology vendors embedding with US forces to test battlefield systems spanning mission command, deep attack, and counter-attack integration.
