Morocco dismantles suspected terrorist cell

RABAT – Moroccan authorities dismantled Monday a suspected terrorist cell in the western city of Sidi Slimane, said the Interior Ministry in a statement.

The Central Office of Judicial Investigations arrested four members of the cell, aged 23 to 51, which the ministry said are supporters of the Islamic State jihadist group.

This operation resulted in the seizure of electronic devices, heavy weapons, a military fatigue and a mask as well as several manuscripts proving the adherence of the suspects to IS doctrine, said the ministry.

Initial investigations revealed that the head of this terrorist cell, who was arrested in 2014 under anti-terrorism law in the wake of the dismantling of another terrorist cell active in the recruitment and dispatch of fighters with terrorist factions in Syria and Iraq, had recruited elements of his cell,

The suspects planned together to carry out terrorist projects aimed at undermining the security of citizens and destabilising the public order.

The latest anti-terror operation is part of ongoing efforts by Moroccan security services to address all threats likely to undermine the country’s security and stability.

Until 2018, Morocco had been spared jihadist attacks since 2011, when a bomb attack on a cafe in Marrakesh's famed Jamaa El Fna Square killed 17 people, most of them European tourists.

Two young Scandinavian women were beheaded while on a hiking trip in Morocco's High Atlas mountains last December.

Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen and her hiking companion 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland, nature lovers who were training to be guides, were on a Christmas holiday hiking trip when they were killed.

Attacks in the North African country's financial capital Casablanca killed 33 people in 2003.

Those attacks - carried out by 12 suicide operatives who came from one of Casablanca's main shanty towns - greatly affected public opinion.

Morocco has since improved its security and legal framework, alongside boosting supervision of religious affairs and anti-terror cooperation with other states.