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.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS