Mohamed Oufkir
Moroccan politician and officer (1920-1972)
General Mohamed Oufkir (Arabic: محمد أوفقير, romanized: Muḥammad Ūfqīr; 16 August 1920 − 16 August 1972) was a Moroccan senior military officer who held many important governmental posts like the minister of interior and minister of defense. Throughout the 60s, he rose to become the regime's strongman having a close relationship with Hassan II of Morocco and was partly responsible for the suppression of political opposition and riots. It is believed that he was involved in the Ben Barka affair and that he was assassinated for his alleged role in the failed 1972 Moroccan coup attempt.
Early life and military career
Mohamed Oufkir was born on 16 August 1920 in the Ait Seghrouchen village of Ain Chair, in the Tafilalt region, the stronghold of High Atlas Berbers or the Berber-speaking village of Boudenib. The name Oufkir means "the impoverished" according to his daughter Malika.
His father was Muhammad ibn Kaddur Oufkir who belonged to the Awlad Oufkir (Ait u Faqir) lineage which was the largest lineage of the larger of two clans in Ain Chair. He was the richest man in the oasis between Figuig and the Ziz valley and he sought peace with the French acting as intermediary between the French army and unsubmitted tribes. Despite being unknown in the eyes of the makhzen and lacking in power before the protectorate, Ibn Kaddur was regarded as the most important political figure in the region by Hubert Lyautey who valued his ruthlessness and loyalty to the French army. Before the protectorate, he wanted support from the French in becoming commander over Ain Chair as well as over the local tribes of Beni Guil, Awlad al-Nasir, and Ait Seghrouchen. He was unable to get this support until the start of the protectorate when he was appointed Pasha of Boudenib.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mohamed Oufkir” is moroccan politician and officer (1920-1972). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mohamed, Oufkir and Moroccan, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1368152. VIAF identifies the subject as 261864988. The Library of Congress control number is n99042132. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mohamed Oufkir” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.