Assalamu alaikum
Morocco dismantles terrorist network
AFP.
RABAT Moroccan police yesterday said they had dismantled a “terrorist network” linked to Al-Qaeda and arrested 15 suspects who were planning attacks.
Moroccan news agency MAP quoted police as saying members of a group called Fath Al Andalous were found in possession of chemicals and electronics “used in the making of explosives”.
“Members of this structure . . . were planning attacks in Morocco and had established operational links with foreign extremists of the Al-Qaeda organisation,” MAP quoted police as saying.
Police did not say where the suspects were arrested but said the network was present in several Moroccan cities.
Those arrested would be taken before a court.
No identities were given.
It is the fourth network police claim to have dismantled this year. Last month, police arrested 35 alleged recruiters for Al-Qaeda operations in Algeria and Iraq who were also accused of planning attacks in Morocco.
Those suspects allegedly belonged to a Salafist group, Salafiya Jihadiya — a security source told AFP — and have links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, as well as Al-Qaeda movements in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.
In May, police said they dismantled a network planning attacks in Belgium and Morocco.
Two of the suspects have since been acquitted.
The name Fath Al Andalous (Conquest of Andalusia) refers to the southern Spanish region from which Moslems were ousted at the end of the 15th Century.
Al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called in a September 20, 2007 video message for the “recovery of Andalusia”. Morocco has been on increased alert for militant suspects since the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca which killed 45 people. — AFP.
