Moroccan security forces foiled a terrorist plot to attack tourists this summer, in what has become a “near-daily” struggle to root out extremist cells increasingly linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, a top security official said.
Abdelhak Bassou, head of Morocco’s Renseignements Generaux domestic intelligence agency, said in a rare interview on Friday that four separate terrorist cells have been broken up this year.
He said one of those groups, with 11 militants arrested in May, was preparing attacks “planned for this summer” in a plot aimed at tourist hotels in Morocco, which is a largely moderate Muslim kingdom and strong US ally.
The country has seen a rise in radical Islam in recent years, and the government has jailed hundreds of suspected militants since a string of bombings killed 45 people in 2003.
Bassou said authorities had broken up “about 30 cells” over the past five years and predicted they would dismantle “another three or four” radical cells during the rest of this year. “At this point, it’s become near-daily work,” he said.
The investigations have revealed extremist networks that extended from Europe to the al-Qaeda terror operation in Iraq, he said. Most of the Moroccan cells support al-Qaeda in Iraq via militant bases in neighboring Algeria, channeling cash, weapons and combatants, he said.
Three of the four alleged cells currently being prosecuted were focused on supporting insurgents in Iraq and had smuggled “some 30 to 50 [Moroccan] fighters” into that country, Bassou said.
“We have to continue to anticipate,” he said, adding that the threat also comes from “loose elements” of one or two individuals who plan small attacks on their own.
Some 1,100 alleged Islamic radicals are now behind bars, either convicted of terrorism charges or awaiting trial.
Bassou said a “huge improvement” in cooperation between Arab and Western intelligence services has helped limit terrorist attacks since the 9/11 assault on the US, but he said another factor is that many al-Qaeda loyalists are focused on the war in Iraq.
“It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t blow up a bus of tourists here if they have the opportunity,” he said.
But the fact that al-Qaeda is relying on many support cells in North Africa for fighters, money and guns is a sign that it is losing ground in Iraq, Bassou said.
“If they don’t show results, I don’t give them five more years of existence,” he said, contending that al-Qaeda needs victories in Iraq to attract new recruits in the Arab world.
Still, Bassou warned, the focus of Islamic extremists could easily shift closer to home, in Europe and North Africa, if al-Qaeda in Iraq collapsed.
“It would become more dangerous, we’d have less visibility,” he said.
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