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August 8, 2006
Morocco: Islamist Terror Plot Foiled, 44 Arrests
News from AKI, Defense News, South Africa's Independent, the BBC, Associated Press via the Las Vegas Sun, and Reuters via Dose, and The Age report that Morocco's state news agency (MAP) has said that it has made 44 arrests, and has broken up a ring of Islamists who were plotting major terror attacks.
Those detained belong to a group, not known before, calling itself the Mehdi Support Group or Jammaat Ansar El Mehdi. A statement from MAP, quoting the Interior Minitry of Morocco, said: "The security services dismantled a terrorist network that planned to commit criminal acts on national territory."
Morocco has been careful to resist the rise of Islamist groups in the country, as it relies heavily upon tourism. After the Casablanca bomb attacks of 16 May, 2003, which killed 45 people, authorities have been vigilant. In May this year, 330 suspected Islamists were detained briefly. These belonged to the hardline fundamentalist opposition group Al-Adl was al-Ihsane (Justice and Charity). The arrests were made following reports that the group was planning an uprising this year.
On May 4 another plot had been uncovered when the leader of an Islamist cell, Muhammad Bariq, was arrested. When Bariq was apprehended, he was found to possess CDs, documents and cellphones, which enabled police to uncover details of a plot to bomb the cities of Tangiers and Araish in Morocco. Additional information was also gleaned from police investigations into Salafist training camps in the region of Tangiers. Salafism is an extreme and uncompromising version of Islam, which encourages war against "unbelievers".
The location of the current wave of arrests is unknown, but it appears that their potential targets were in the northeast of the kingdom. The MAP statement said the leader, Hassan El Khattab, had "managed to recruit radical Islamists with a view to training them to use explosives in the regions of Nador and Ouezzane, from where he aimed to proclaim the jihad, after buying firearms."
These towns are said to be poor, and also recruiting grounds for the Al-Adl was al-Ihsane (Justice and Charity) group. Hassan El Khattab is said to be a former convict.
In the arrests, MAP stated that explosives, propaganda material and laboratory equipment were seized. The group leader had planned to finance the attacks via bank robberies, hold-ups of money transport convoys, and loans drawn out from banks by his followers. Defense News states that five of those who were arrested were members of the military, trained in the use of explosives.
Gavin Proudley, a risk consultant and former British government expert, said: "It is interesting that they have allowed it to be known, if true, that there were members of the army involved. It maybe gives an indication that this is more serious than just a crackdown on a few suburban hooligans."
Earlier this year, the Moroccan authorities announced that they had broken up at least 50 terrorist cells, comprising more than 2,000 members, since the Casablanca attacks of 2003.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 8, 2006 10:34 PM
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