Morocco: Thefts in Europe funded terror ring

Kingdom says it has dismantled network that was plotting assassinations

PARIS - Morocco's government said it has dismantled a terrorist network that had plotted to assassinate Cabinet ministers and members of the North African kingdom's Jewish community.

Authorities believe the network has links to al-Qaida and local terror groups, the official MAP news agency reported Wednesday night. A total of 32 people were arrested in sweeps this week, Moroccan newspapers said.

Morocco also has banned an Islamist political party, Al Badil Al Hadari, because some members were linked to the network, MAP said, citing the interior minister.

The network raised money by waging holdups, selling stolen goods and taking contributions from its members, the report said. One suspected member of the group waged a heist of an armored truck in Luxembourg in 2000, netting the group $25.65 million, MAP said.

Gold jewelry stolen in Belgium was melted down by a goldsmith who belonged to the network and then sold, it said.

The group had plotted to assassinate Cabinet ministers, army officers and members of the Jewish community, Interior Minister Chakib Benoussa was quoted as saying. Only a few thousand Jews still live in the largely Muslim kingdom, as many have emigrated to Israel and elsewhere.

Moroccan authorities have been on alert since suicide bombings in 2003 in Casablanca killed 45 people and stunned this relatively moderate Muslim country, a popular vacation spot. Those bombings targeted a Jewish community center and cemetery, a hotel, a restaurant and a Spanish social club. Authorities have carried out regular anti-terror sweeps since then.

Last March, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a Casablanca Internet cafe, and investigators later uncovered an alleged plot targeting tourist sites across Morocco. Police cornered four suspects, shooting one dead and prompting the other three to blow themselves up to avoid capture. The blasts killed a policeman and wounded 21 other people.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23270932/

Teachers and police among Moroccan jihadist suspects

RABAT - Teachers, lecturers, a police officer and a journalist were among 32 people arrested by Morocco's security services in an operation to break up a suspected jihadist cell, the government said on Tuesday.

The suspects were rounded up in the capital Rabat, in Casablanca and other towns across the country in the past two days and security analysts have expressed surprise at the varied background and high profile of some of those held.

The best known are leading Islamist political figures Mustapha Moatassim, Mohammed Amine Ragala and Mohamed Merouani.

Others include company directors, government employees, a hotel manager in the popular tourist destination of Marrakesh and a correspondent for Hezbollah television channel Al Manar, according to a list published by state news agency MAP.

The cell's alleged leader, Abdelkader Belliraj, is a Moroccan living in Belgium. MAP said the group was "very dangerous" and had links with other organizations active in Morocco and abroad.

Since suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca five years ago, the Moroccan authorities have rounded up thousands of Islamists suspected of planning to overthrow the north African country's secular-minded monarchy and imprisoned hundreds.

More bombings hit the normally peaceful country last March and April when seven men blew themselves up in Casablanca, killing themselves and a police officer.

The government made dozens of arrests in the months following the bombings, raised its national security alert to maximum and deployed extra security personnel. The alert was lowered after September elections passed off peacefully.

As with the 2003 attacks, many of last year's bombers were poor, jobless and impressionable young slum dwellers drawn to violence on the promise of eternity in paradise.

But cases have emerged of better-off Moroccans being linked to jihadist cells. Among 50 suspected militants jailed for up to 25 years last month for plotting bombings and robberies were the wives of two pilots at national airline Royal Air Maroc.

Rights activists said the government's decision to arrest three Islamist politicians could be a form of revenge on its opponents.

"I condemn and deplore these detentions ... due to the illogical accusations concerning terrorist acts, just as I condemn all the political detentions our country has endured," said Abdeslam Adid of Moroccan human rights group AMDH.

Human rights groups say the security services abuse the rights of many people arrested under anti-terrorism laws and insist many are held on unfounded suspicions, something the government denies.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23241557/

Morocco bans Islamist party after arrests

RABAT - Morocco outlawed an Islamist party on Wednesday after authorities linked its leader to what they called a terrorist network rounded up by police this week.

The government said the network, tied to al Qaeda and other groups, planned a spate of killings in Morocco, a staunch ally of the U.S.-declared global war on terrorism.

The outlawed party was al Badil al Hadari (Civilized Alternative), which had been among Islamist parties allowed to operate legally. It contested national elections in September.

Al Hadari's chief, Mustapha Moatassim, was among 32 people arrested in a police operation on Monday and Tuesday and accused of planning to slay top army officers, government ministers and some Moroccan Jews, the interior minister said.

"The network has a two-pronged strategy: one for political activity with al Badil al Hadari as its public face and another clandestine focusing on military action," Chakib Benmoussa told a news conference.

"The network set up a military wing named Special Action Group," he said, adding it had links with Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which last year changed its name to al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.

"The network developed links with terror groups abroad to give military training to its members," he added, naming al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Abdelhafid Sriti, Hezbollah's Al Manar television correspondent in Morocco, was among the 32 detained.

Benmoussa said members of the network, launched in 1992, had carried out six murders in Belgium, where its Moroccan leader, Abdelkader Belliraj, lived.

The allegations of links to terrorism against Moatassim were the first leveled at a leader of a legal Islamist party.

WEAPONS

Three other small Islamist underground groups were linked to the network, Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi's office said, as well as a group widely known as moderate, the Oumma Movement.

Oumma Movement, whose leader Mohamed Merouani was among those detained, applied for legal status as a party, but the Interior ministry dismissed its request last year.

Police discovered at least 34 weapons, including two Israeli-made UZI assault rifles, when they raided homes and offices of the suspects, Benmoussa said.

"The prime minister decreed the dismantling of al Badil al Hadari within the framework of the break-up of the Belliraj terrorist network and in the light of the proven links between this network and the creation of this party," Fassi's office said in a statement.

It also said a member of the network had carried out a hold-up on a Brussels subsidiary of business security firm Brink's CO in 2000 to steal 17.5 million euros, with the help of European gangsters.

"The heist from this hold-up enabled the network to introduce the equivalent of 30 million dirhams ($3.89 million) in 2001 to Morocco to fund its activities," it added.

Morocco's government, on alert since suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca nearly five years ago, says it has broken up more than 60 cells of terror suspects since then. It has arrested more than 3,000 people in the process.

The largest Islamic opposition movement, Al Adl Wal Ihssane (Justice and Charity), is tolerated by King Mohammed's government but banned from mainstream politics because of its open hostility to the monarchy.

The moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) has 46 seats in Morocco's 325-member parliament.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23256739/

   Want to know how to fight terrorists? Lesson number one; terrorists are criminals! Criminals are fought primarily with determined law enforcement entities , not confused military entities walking down streets and alleys in formation with body armour and weapons drawn (the Bush method of fighting terrorism) The US CIA and FBI agencies should go to Morocco and learn something about fighting terrorism. Morocco doesn't play with terrorists, they really do fight them.

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