Royal Moroccan Army guard force

[smle-man]

On the recent cruise, we visited Rabat, the capital of Morocco. In Rabat we traveled to the Hassan Tower and mausoleum of Mohammed V.

At the entrances to the grounds, mounted lancers stand guard. At the mausoleum itself, armed guards are at the four doors, and an additional four guards are positioned inside.

The soldiers are very solemn but also have no problem with being in pictures. The guard inside poked me to get me to come closer to him for a better picture!

The armed guards appear to have Mauser model 24s.

The guard force changes every two hours. It was only about 65F when we were there but at the height of summer, the heat must be crushing, even though they are in the shade.



Exterior mounted guards



One of the four guards manning the exterior entrances



The rifle stock is highly decorated with hand-rendered painting



The interior guards

[SDDAVE56]

How cool! Did you visit Rick's Cafe in Casablanca ?

[smle-man]

How cool! Did you visit Rick's Cafe in Casablanca ?

No, Rick's in Casablanca is actually from 2004. The original Rick's was a sound stage in Burbank.

[SDDAVE56]

No, Rick's in Casablanca is actually from 2004. The original Rick's was a sound stage in Burbank.

I see.

[BrokerB]

Excellent, love the mauser dressing. Very cool the guards welcomed pictures

[k1dude]

I don't think that's paint. In that part of the world, there's a lot of inlay work.

[Mojaveman]

Spent some time in Morocco when I was in the military 40 years ago. The climate was a lot like Southern California, and I was at Rabat which isn't far from the coast. It's a Muslim country but much more tolerant than the countries further east.

I was in an advisory group and was involved in training their Airborne Brigade because there was a low intensity conflict going on in the Western Sahara in the mid '80s. MAG-58s, FN-FALs, AK-47s, Browning High Powers, etc.

The women there were dark, mysterious and beautiful.

[BB-Stacker]

Neat pics! Thanks for sharing. Makes the world a little smaller when we can see in to how the rest of the world does things.

[smle-man]

Spent some time in Morocco when I was in the military 40 years ago. The climate was a lot like Southern California, and I was at Rabat which isn't far from the coast. It's a Muslim country but much more tolerant than the countries further east.

I was in an advisory group and was involved in training their Airborne Brigade because there was a low intensity conflict going on in the Western Sahara in the mid '80s. MAG-58s, FN-FALs, AK-47s, Browning High Powers, etc.

The women there were dark, mysterious and beautiful.

90% of the men in Casablanca and Rabat were wearing western dress and about 30% of the women. All of the ads featuring women were attired in western dress. The baseball cap has become the ubiquitous headdress of the world. Every man not in a suit was wearing a baseball cap. I saw several teen girls with headscarves with baseball caps on top of the scarves!

[Dan_Eastvale]

Sounds like a lot of fun.

Beautiful horses.

Did you see any of the damage from their recent 6.8 earthquake?

[smle-man]

Sounds like a lot of fun.

Beautiful horses.

Did you see any of the damage from their recent 6.8 earthquake?

Only from the earthquake of 1755! I think the damage from the recent one was in Marrakech which we didn't go to.

[Killer Bee]

took the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier back in the 90's

got stripped search (down to my skivies) in the middle of the terminal on the way out

[sealocan]

Very cool, thanks for sharing the info and the images.

But I concur with k1dude , there may be paint on those rifles (and you would know because you were seeing them close up) but I would think that it was fancy inlay done by one of the craftsman in that country.

Like maybe an inlay of silver, ivory, gold or who knows what they might have used.

[smle-man]

took the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier back in the 90's

got stripped search (down to my skivies) in the middle of the terminal on the way out

Same ship? This ferry is derelict at the Casablanca port and apparently has been sitting so long one of the lifeboats fell off onto the dock.

[user name]

I love Moroccan food.