BCIJ chief warns against family recruitment for terrorism

RABAT - Director of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ), Habboub Cherkaoui, warned Thursday that Morocco is facing an ongoing threat of terrorism that now involves family recruitment in addition to lone wolves who swear their allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Sahel region.

The latest anti-terror operation saw four suspects arrested Sunday, including three brothers, in the Had Soualem region of the Berrechid Province.

Cherkaoui said in a press conference at the BCIJ headquarters in Sale that the three brothers and another suspect were on the verge of attacking very sensitive places, including security buildings, with handmade explosives and by using techniques of individual terrorism.

“Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspects swore their allegiance to the so-called ISIS in a recorded video during which they also claimed in advance their responsibility for the terrorist plots they were about to carry out,” said BCIJ chief.

“We deducted that the terrorist cell reached an advanced level of preparing terrorist attacks in the North African kingdom, especially after they took photos of several potential targets and drew plans of gates and issues that lead to them,” he noted.

Family recruitment for terrorism

The common characteristic of the three brothers was their limited educational level (sixth grade) while the fourth suspect reached the baccalaureate.

Cherkaoui stressed that the family recruitment has become a new branch of extremism and terrorism.

He warned that the three brothers’ cell was proof of a rising threat that portends serious social and security challenges, which show the danger of entire families slipping into or becoming completely involved in intellectual extremism and forming pockets of resistance from Moroccan customs and traditions, the society’s unison and doctrine.

The BCIJ chief also warned against the influence of some family members who hold extremist ideology on their relatives and social environment.

“The alleged Emir of this cell, who is the eldest brother, was able to turn his small family into a hub for extremism, recruitment and polarization for the benefit of his terrorist project, exploiting his moral authority and his ability to negatively influence his immediate social environment,” said Cherkaoui.

Investigations related to terrorism cases allowed the monitoring of some tendencies of this human polarization as a mechanism for recruitment and rapid radicalization.

Cherkaoui cited the example of the women’s cell that was dismantled on October 3, 2016, which showed that most of its members had been influenced by ISIS ideology through the impact of the family environment, given that most of them had relatives active in the ranks of ISIS or that they are descendants of families whose members had previously been convicted in various stages, such as terrorism and extremism cases.

Global terrorist organizations, especially ISIS, are striving to attract families to serve their destructive projects that aim to undermine security and stability by sending their fighters to hotbeds of tension by recruiting their relatives and brothers to engage in terrorist acts.

Online recruitment and organic connection to ISIS

A research conducted by the Moroccan security services showed that this terrorist cell had an organic connection to one of the leaders of ISIS in the Sahel region, who played an important role in accelerating the process of recruitment through the extremist digital publications and content that he sent to the members of this cell with the aim of making them suicidal and ready to execute terrorist attacks.

Cherakoui said that the cyber propaganda that ISIS engaged in contributed to accelerating the pace of extremism in the three-brother cell and played a dangerous role in preparing them to commit individual terrorist plots bearing the hallmarks of ISIS.

This cell has once again revealed the extent of the extremist groups’ excessive reliance on the use of information technology and modern communication techniques to serve their terrorist projects.

Since 2016, Morocco’s security services have been able to arrest more than 600 extremists who were planning to carry out terrorist operations in the style of “lone wolves”, that is encouraged by ISIS within the framework of what it calls the sustainability of the war of attrition.

The North African Kingdom is using the latest IT technology to track those who spread extremist ideologies and exchange expertise in making bombs on social media.

Minors dragged into extremism

Cherkaoui warned that cyber extremism among minors has become a serious threat in its own right.

“Terrorist organizations seek to exploit the young age of these minors, who are very active on social media networks and their behavioural nature associated with the desire for adventure and risk-taking, in order to throw them into a terrorist operation,” said Cherkaoui.

He sounded the alarm bell over the terrorist threat by Moroccan minors who live in some hotbeds and camps in the Middle East, especially in Syria.

“What increases the danger of this threat is the increase in the number of minors from Moroccan families who are currently detained in some hotbeds of tension, especially in northeastern Syria,” warned Cherkaoui.

382 children, including more than 50 minors who accompanied their families to Syria between 2013 and 2015 at the age of seven to nine, have now reached adulthood, according to statistics provided by the FBI-like BCIJ.

“Many of them underwent combat training and made threats against our country, as is the case with the minor son of the fighter Ibrahim Al-Hilli, who participated in a competition in 2015 for youngsters of various nationalities under the so-called Cubs of the Caliphate,” said the BCIJ chief.

A horrific video played during the press conference showed the nine-year old boy being given a gun by an ISIS fighter with which he killed a captured Syrian soldier in cold blood as a reward for his excellence.

The Sahel region a hotbed for terrorist organisations

The video is credible evidence that Morocco is continuously facing terrorist threats from both overseas and within the country as the Sahel region has become a hotbed for terrorist organisations.

The preliminary investigations revealed that the three brothers wanted to join ISIS camps in the Sahel region immediately after carrying out their terrorist project.

The eldest brother intended to take his five sons to the region, which clearly reveals that terrorist organisations in various areas of tension have begun to bet on providing food and shelter to lure fighters and their families from various countries of the world.

The Sahel region has become a real threat to Morocco and has emerged as a common feature among most of the extremists arrested since 2022, as most of them planned to carry out terrorist projects in Morocco before joining this region.

Statistics indicate that Moroccan authorities have dismantled more than 40 terrorist cells closely linked to Al-Qaeda or ISIS branches in the Sahel.

Since late 2022, Moroccan authorities have monitored the departure of 130 Moroccan extremists to the jihad arena in Somalia and the Sahel, which clearly reveals the extent of the threats associated with this region to security and stability in the regional environment.

“As evidence of the extent of these challenges, we note that many Moroccan fighters who joined the ranks of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Tawhid and Jihad Group in West Africa, Al Nusra Front, and ISIS were seeking to expand the activities of their groups within Morocco,” said Cherkaoui.

“In fact, many of them were assigned leadership tasks, and others were involved in dangerous terrorist operations, as is the case with the attack launched by ISIS in the Puntland region of Somalia on Somali forces on December 31 which involved two Moroccan militants,” he added.

Morocco’s General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DGST) was the first to warn the international community about the growing interest of Al-Qaeda in the African Sahel region and also to warn that this region would turn into a regional hub for international terrorist organizations.

Targets

The dismantled cell was preparing to carry out terrorist and sabotage operations targeting sensitive security headquarters, as well as a supermarket and public shops that receive both local and foreign customers.

“The suspects engaged in a secret operation to photograph these headquarters from different angles to determine their access points. They also made approximate drawings of the paths and routes leading to them,” said Cherkaoui.

The suspects acquired chemical materials, equipment, and dual-use goods that could be used to manufacture explosives.

They bet on diversifying DIY stores in order to mislead and not attract attention, and provided many large-sized white weapons for the purpose of liquidating bodies.