US and Moroccan Forces Conduct First Live-Fire Test of New Cruise Missile Near Tan-Tan

On 6 August 2026, U.S. and Moroccan forces executed the first live-fire demonstration of a low-cost, long-range cruise missile at an expeditionary site near Tan-Tan, Morocco, according to Military Africa. The event, which ran from August 3 to 7, brought together the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces (Forces Armées Royales, FAR), and engineers from a US defense startup.

The test fell under the US Army Secretary’s Test Range Expansion Initiative, a program that gives private technology firms faster access to military test ranges. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has said the initiative aims to cut the wait for range access, historically 12 to 18 months, down to about 30 days. Personnel set up a temporary expeditionary launch site in the dunes outside Tan-Tan rather than using a fixed facility. Teams tested the missile’s communications links, checked how its wings, tires, and launch trolley handled the desert terrain, and gathered weather and targeting data through the week. AFRICOM described the effort as a single live-fire event supported by days of setup and system checks, not a repeated firing campaign.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the launch marked the operational launch of the new Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center (AMTEC), established under the Abraham Accords and amid close cooperation between Washington and Rabat. According to the Post, the facility is intended to become a permanent “military laboratory” for advanced warfare technologies. During the test, US and Moroccan forces, together with company engineers, set up a temporary launch site in the dunes of the Sahara Desert and tested the missile’s communications systems, launch mechanisms, and the collection of communications and climate data in real time.

The Missile and the Company

AFRICOM’s own statement did not name the weapon or the company behind it, referring only to a “US defense industry partner,” according to Military Africa. Regional reporting has since identified the system as Anthem, a low-cost, long-range cruise missile built by Covenant Industries, a US-registered startup with an Israeli subsidiary founded in 2024 by Michael Kaufman. The company has raised backing from investors including Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz and has been valued at more than a billion dollars, according to the Israeli financial press, as cited by Military Africa.

The Jerusalem Post added that Covenant was founded in 2024 by Michael Kaufman, an American investor and entrepreneur operating out of Israel. The company, which has subsidiaries in Israel and Germany, has no official website. It has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from major Silicon Valley funds, including Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz.

Anthem is intended to be Covenant’s flagship product, offering a cheaper alternative that is easier to mass produce than heavy and expensive cruise missiles such as the US Tomahawk, while maintaining long range capabilities and precision strike capacity. The company is also developing lower-cost interceptors against drones and swarms of aircraft, the Post reported. A Covenant executive told reporters the firm expects to begin delivering production-ready hardware for its manufacturing line in early 2027.

The Jerusalem Post noted that the launch was made possible through an initiative by the office of the US Secretary of the Army allowing private tech companies rapid access to military testing grounds within 30 days, and that Covenant was the first company to use the initiative. The test represents a milestone toward serial production as early as the beginning of 2027.

Military Africa reported that the US Tomahawk stocks have thinned after roughly 850 missiles were expended during the opening weeks of the Iran conflict, cutting the American inventory by about a quarter. Washington is prioritizing replenishing its own stockpile, leaving partners looking for other options. Germany has reportedly held talks with Covenant about acquiring Anthem as part of a four-track plan to field a low-cost cruise missile capability by 2027.

Official Reactions and the AMTEC Center

Col. Zouhair El Hamdani, the Royal Armed Forces officer coordinating the project, called the test a step toward making AMTEC “a regional hub for innovation, strategic cooperation, and industrial development,” according to Military Africa. AFRICOM commander Gen. Dagvin Anderson said Morocco’s involvement “accelerates readiness for the US joint force and our African partners.”

Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces and AFRICOM signed a memorandum of understanding on July 13, 2026, at AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, to build the center at Tan-Tan, Military Africa reported. General Mohammed Berrid signed for Morocco and General Anderson signed for AFRICOM on the AMTEC MoU.

AMTEC is meant as a standing range complex covering the full electromagnetic spectrum, where operators, planners, and instructors from Morocco and other African partner nations can train on small unmanned aerial systems and counterterrorism tasks. AFRICOM has said future work at the site will expand into long-range fires, autonomous systems, wireless communications, and advanced sensing.

The test comes amid a broader expansion of US-Morocco defense ties. In March 2026, Gen. Christopher Donahue told the African Land Forces Summit in Rome that Washington planned a regional drone training hub in Morocco. In April 2026, Morocco and the US signed a 10-year Roadmap for Defense Cooperation covering 2026 to 2036. This spring’s Africa Lion exercise was led by US Army Southern European Task Force Africa (SETAF-AF) alongside the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces and more than 40 partner nations.