When last we met Mohamed Oufkir in these pages, he was violently suppressing an attempted coup against Morocco's King Hassan II.
Mohamed Oufkir's wife and six children were “disappeared” to a desert prison, not to emerge for 18 years. Daughter Malika, a royal favorite in happier times, wrote Stolen Lives about that ordeal. (Interview | Another)
We find him today, 13 months later as the arrow of time flies, in the same story — on the other end of the gun-barrel.
At around 4 o'clock this afternoon, a stunning attempt on the monarch took place as he flew back to Morocco from France. The king's 727 was attacked by F-5 fighters of the Moroccan Air Force, surviving, it is said, when the quick-thinking king himself took the radio, pretended to be a flight engineer, and informed the attacking fighters that the pilots were dead and the king mortally wounded.
The ruse tricked the attacking pilots into allowing the crippled plane to make its landing in Rabat; they returned too late to strafe the airfield when they realized their mistake.
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