The leaders of Spain’s Partido Popular (People’s Party), including its president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo; the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso; and the president of Ceuta, Juan Vivas, remain determined to poison relations between Morocco and Spain and push them to the limit. In their eagerness to demonstrate to Spanish voters that they mean business when it comes to their obsession with Morocco, that they “will not give up” in the face of Rabat’s supposed “blackmail” and that they “will not bend over backwards,” they have now decided to take their anti-Moroccan campaign to the European Parliament. At the urging of the European People’s Party, the European Parliament is preparing to debate a resolution condemning Morocco for the alleged “hybrid war” it is supposedly waging against Spain.
Meanwhile, Silvia Intxaurrondo, an RTVE presenter and one of the few journalists who still practice their profession with honesty, rigor and principles, has exposed the stale disinformation campaign in which a large part of the Spanish media, particularly right-wing outlets, have been immersed for six weeks. As Intxaurrondo shows and as I have amply and repeatedly demonstrated over the years, theirs is part of a coordinated, decades-running effort to construct a narrative about Morocco’s alleged direct involvement in what happened in Ceuta.
Yet particularly striking is that this narrative persists even though the CNI documents declassified by the Spanish government contain no accusation that Morocco planned, organized or coordinated any supposed “hybrid war” against Spain. Still, numerous media outlets have twisted their contents and presented their slanted and manufactured reading of the Ceuta migration crisis as confirmation of a conclusion they had already reached beforehand. With no facts and verifiable data supporting their predetermined claims, they have elected to make up a reality on which they can now project their conspiracies and Morocco-bashing suppositions.
At the very least, Feijóo could have chosen to take note of what is contained in the CNI reports, or temper his language toward a government with which he may be called upon to work in the future to strengthen bilateral ties. He could have, above all, taken a path that ensures the stability of Spain’s borders in the face of incessant migratory flows. Instead, Feijóo has chosen the path of escalation.
“Even knowing that information is missing, we know that Morocco [is behind] the hybrid attack,” the PP leader said in a lengthy interview with El Mundo on September 13. “Whether through action or omission. Morocco knew about these movements, was aware of their impact and did not prevent them.” The agreement signed between Morocco and Spain on the return of unaccompanied minors in 2007, which entered into force in 2012, has only been applied once, in 2021. And it is amply documented that Morocco is not responsible for the failure to implement this agreement. But Feijóo, oblivious to such easily verifiable, publicly available technical details, argued in his September 13 tirade that “if Morocco does not accept the return, the aggression continues. And, in my opinion, Morocco’s aggression is continuing.”
What else to conclude from such instances of literal disdain for the truth and factual details, if not that Feijóo, like his colleagues in the PP, is only interested in manipulating Spanish public opinion to serve his electoral agenda? The only thing that matters most to them at this point is to extract political gain from what happened in Ceuta, because the PP knows – and is betting – that turning Morocco into an external enemy and presenting its leader as the man who will “put it in its place” is an extremely effective electoral tool for winning votes and cornering Pedro Sánchez.
In that sense, this campaign already appears to be having an effect. According to a 40dB. poll for El País and Cadena SER published on September 6, nearly 90 percent of Spaniards attribute “a lot” or “a considerable amount” of responsibility for the mass arrival of migrants in Ceuta to the Moroccan government. The figure is particularly significant because it shows how deeply the idea that Morocco was responsible for what happened has taken root in Spanish public opinion, although it should be clarified that the poll did not ask whether Rabat had deliberately planned, organized or coordinated the entries.
What the CNI documents actually say
We know now that various Spanish state security agencies, including the Civil Guard, the National Police, the Armed Forces Intelligence Center (CIFAS) and the National Intelligence Center (CNI), analyzed the mass entry into Ceuta on July 30 and 31, as well as the sequence of events that unfolded along the border of the Spanish enclave in a collection of 40 documents. From this large body of investigative documents, the CNI reports allow for a particularly detailed reconstruction of the sequence of events that preceded and accompanied the Ceuta crisis. The chronology contained in the CNI’s own documents is devastatingly contrary to the comfortable but misleading narrative that the PP and its leader have presented over the past weeks as established truth.
In its C/10266 note, dated July 27, the CNI warned of increased migratory pressure on Ceuta and Melilla and pointed to the possible effect of the Supreme Court ruling published on July 8. The intelligence service warned that the ruling could have “a very significant impact on irregular entries into the autonomous cities, particularly Ceuta,” where, according to its own data, 12,829 attempts to enter by swimming had been recorded in 2025, of which only 431 had been successful.
This last figure is fundamental and yet barely appears in the media narrative. If only 431 of nearly 13,000 attempts resulted in actual entries, this logically means that the overwhelming majority failed. The figure does not automatically allow all those failures to be attributed to the actions of Moroccan forces, since other factors may have intervened. But it is difficult to reconcile this same data with the image of a systematically open Moroccan border and authorities deliberately engaged in facilitating irregular entries into Ceuta.
In fact, the CNI’s own forward-looking assessment pointed in the direction of exemplary and reliable commitment from the Moroccan side. The report specifically referred to the “commitment of the Moroccan authorities to preventing boats from departing” and estimated that the “control exercised by the Moroccan authorities over irregular migration” would continue to have a “containment effect.” Irregular entries into Spain had fallen by 33 percent, the CNI concluded, adding that irregular maritime arrivals from the Algerian coast remained the most numerous.
Precisely because the CNI was aware of the importance of Moroccan cooperation, it decided on July 29, following unusual activity on social media, to alert its Moroccan counterparts. That day, it drafted note C/10399 after detecting calls circulated through WhatsApp and Facebook encouraging a mass attempt to enter Ceuta during celebrations for Throne Day. According to the CNI, the call was circulating, among other places, in a WhatsApp group called “Assault on the Ceuta Fence” and in two Facebook groups with a combined following of more than 180,000 people. The messages urged people to take advantage of the moment when Moroccan security forces would be occupied with the celebrations. The words recorded by the CNI are particularly telling: “Anyone who wants to cross has one last opportunity during the Throne celebrations; at eight o’clock the authorities will be distracted by the celebration and the parades.”
This detail is crucial. It shows that those who planned, promoted, and executed the mass entry did not speak of the complicity of Moroccan security forces. Quite the opposite: they urged people to take advantage of the moment when those forces would be distracted and some of their personnel occupied with the Throne Day celebrations. The fact that Spanish intelligence services were aware that the networks planning the mass entry into Ceuta intended precisely to exploit the Throne Day celebrations to carry out the assault is reflected in a WhatsApp message exchanged at 1:52 p.m. on July 29 between a CNI member stationed in Ceuta and the chief of staff to the government delegate in the autonomous city. “There is a call on social media for an assault by fence and sea tomorrow at 8 p.m. Taking advantage of the Throne celebration and the fact that their Security Forces will be busy. There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers. So you can get an idea of the reach of the dissemination,” the CNI agent is reported to have said.
In response to this information, the CNI decided on July 29 to alert both the Directorate General for Territorial Surveillance (DGST), Morocco’s domestic intelligence service, and the Directorate General for Studies and Documentation (DGED), its foreign intelligence service. At the same time, it informed the Civil Guard. In other words, the Spanish intelligence service itself turned to its Moroccan counterparts in an attempt to prevent what, according to the narrative subsequently constructed by the PP, Vox and certain media outlets, Morocco had supposedly been deliberately preparing.
And the language contained in the document that the CNI sent to the Moroccan intelligence services on July 29 attests to the degree of trust CNI agents placed in their Moroccan counterparts, as well as their recognition of Morocco’s continued cooperation in combating migratory flows. “Should new information on the matter be obtained, it will be duly conveyed to your service,” the CNI document states. “We appreciate your invaluable and continued cooperation in this matter.” This raises a difficult question for those, including Feijóo himself and Vox leaders, who claim that Morocco had planned a “hybrid war” against Spain. If the CNI considered Moroccan intelligence services to be precisely the counterparts it needed to alert in order to prevent what could happen the following day, where is the concrete evidence that subsequently supports the claim that those same state apparatuses were behind the operation? Some could argue that this warning is not absolute proof that no Moroccan agency could have had any responsibility whatsoever. But then again, it is absolutely illogical and ludicrous to base a categorical accusation of Moroccan complicity or orchestration on these findings by the CNI. And this is exactly what the PP has been up to, projecting its Morocco-bashing conclusions on an investigation that exonerates Morocco and commends its security forces’ exemplary and honorable commitment to the bilateral agreements binding Madrid and Rabat.
Overwhelmed forces do not amount to a ‘Hybrid War’
What happened the following day does not fit the anti-Morocco thesis either. According to the CNI documentation, Morocco had sent “reinforcements” to the border, but “the reinforcement of the presence of Moroccan police and gendarmes proved insufficient to control the crowd.” Faced with the arrival of hundreds of people, the Moroccan forces present on the ground “were overwhelmed and did not intervene to prevent access to the sea.” The report adds: “The large volume of Maghreb migrants overwhelmed the control capacity of the few units in the area.”
After determining that police, gendarmerie and auxiliary forces had been overwhelmed by the size of the gathering, the Moroccan authorities sent, at around 1:30 p.m., “the first riot-control units to the vicinity of Bab Sebta.” Their intervention also failed to immediately halt the flow, and a significant number of migrants took to the sea to swim around the breakwater.
It is true that the CNI also noted that “at the operational level, no proactive reaction by the Moroccan authorities has been detected following the loss of control of the situation.” But establishing that the response to a situation that had overwhelmed the deployed units was insufficient or delayed is not the same as demonstrating that Morocco had planned, organized or coordinated a “hybrid war” against Spain. And there is another fact that makes this narrative even more difficult to sustain. Eight days earlier, on July 22, the Civil Guard had shared a note with institutions involved in combating irregular migration, highlighting “an increase in the cooperation provided by the Moroccan Royal Navy in attempts to enter the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla by swimming, rising from 627 interceptions the previous week to 773 (+146).”
The same note also stated that the Moroccan Gendarmerie had arrested in Nador one of the most wanted human traffickers. And on July 29, that is, on the eve of the mass entry of irregular migrants into Ceuta, the Coastal and Border Maritime Surveillance Coordination Center recorded an “increase in the cooperation provided by the Moroccan Navy,” which had thwarted 1,429 attempts to enter Ceuta by swimming, 482 more than the previous week.
Even in the midst of the crisis, one of the CNI documents drafted on July 30 noted that “the Moroccan authorities appear to be reasonably cooperative, although overwhelmed by the very high number of rescue operations.” These facts also weaken analyses now claiming that Morocco decided to disregard its commitments to the Spanish government on combating migratory flows following Pedro Sánchez’s visit to Algeria on July 21 or the approval, by the Justice Commission of the Congress of Deputies, of the bill granting Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born in the Sahara before 1977. If those steps taken by Spain had angered Morocco to the point of prompting it to deliberately ease migration controls as a means of applying pressure, then why did Spanish sources themselves continue to record Moroccan cooperation in containing irregular migration toward Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands as late as July 29?
The CNI also identifies another essential factor in understanding the scale the events ultimately assumed. Once the entries began, testimonies started circulating on TikTok from people who had managed to reach Ceuta claiming that they were not being immediately returned. According to the intelligence service itself, this information reinforced the “pull factor” and could multiply attempts to enter as the images and testimonies spread across social media.
In the CNI’s own words, the “acceleration in the pace of arrivals” resulted from the interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling of July 8 and the creation of an “exponential pull factor” from July 22, following the publication of videos showing “the achievements” of those who had reached Ceuta by swimming and had not been returned.
An essential distinction needs to be made at this point. The existence of organized calls, individual recruiters and digital networks devoted to mobilizing people toward Ceuta does not demonstrate that the Moroccan state was behind them. The decisive question is no longer whether there was prior organization, something the Spanish documents themselves allow us to establish, but who organized those networks and whether there is any evidence linking their promoters to the Moroccan authorities. Confusing digital organization with state authorship evades, rather than resolves, that evidentiary problem. The sequence described by the Spanish documents themselves is therefore quite clear. First, the Spanish authorities became aware of increased migratory pressure. They then drew up reports referring to the possible effect of the Supreme Court ruling and the existence of mass calls on social media to take advantage of the Throne Day celebrations. In response to this information, the CNI alerted Moroccan intelligence services, and Morocco reinforced its security apparatus around the border.
Yet faced with an unprecedented number of people seeking to cross into Ceuta, Moroccan security forces were overwhelmed. The authorities then deployed riot-control units. But, given the “pull factor” generated by the interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling and the circulation of testimonies from people who had managed to enter without being immediately returned, the Moroccan deployments proved insufficient.
Where, in this entire sequence, is the evidence of a “hybrid war” planned by Morocco? How can it seriously be argued that Morocco was deliberately preparing an operation against Spain while its forces were intercepting hundreds of people, intensifying their cooperation with the Civil Guard, arresting traffickers, reinforcing the border apparatus, and its intelligence services were receiving a warning from the CNI itself precisely intended to prevent the mass entry?
First the verdict, then the evidence
One can legitimately debate whether the Moroccan response was sufficiently rapid, whether the forces deployed were adequate or whether operational mistakes were made. In its assessment of the actions of Moroccan security forces at 1 p.m. on July 30, CIFAS itself went so far as to consider the possibility that they “may have acted negligently or passively.” At the same time, however, it ruled out as the most likely hypothesis an active Moroccan effort to facilitate the wave, stating that “it is highly likely that the Moroccan authorities are not actively facilitating the migratory wave.”
All of that is legitimate. But what is not legitimate is to turn, without providing evidence, an operational failure or delayed response into proof that Morocco deliberately organized a “hybrid war.” Yet the PP, Vox and most of the Spanish media appear to have reversed the method: they first delivered the verdict and then searched the documents for any phrase that could be used to justify it. They now seek to export that same narrative to the European Parliament.
The problem for them is that the more the CNI documents are read as a whole, rather than merely the phrases conveniently selected to feed headlines, the harder it becomes to make them fit the Morocco-orchestrated “hybrid war” accusation they have spent six weeks trying to sell to Spanish public opinion.
The available documentation allows for debate over mistakes, delays, shortcomings and even episodes of possible passivity. It also establishes that there were networks and individuals who organized and amplified calls to enter Ceuta. But what it does not yet allow us to do, without making a leap that the evidence does not support, is transform all of this into proof of a state operation conceived, directed and coordinated by Morocco. And as long as that missing link remains absent, the accusation of a “hybrid war” will continue to look much more like a political verdict in search of evidence than a conclusion derived from it.
Samir Bennis is the co-founder and publisher of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis.
