Morocco and Terrorism

Submitted by K Prabhakar Rao on Sat, 09/15/2007 - 15:31. al qaeda Fanaticism & Terrorism Karim Mejjati morocco terrorism

Prof Dr Colonel (Retired) K Prabhakar Rao

The word Morocco is directly derived from the Amazigh word Mur-Akush meaning Land of God. The full Arabic name of Morocco, Al-Mamlaka al-Maghribiya, translates to "The Western Kingdom". Al Maghrib (meaning "The West") is commonly used. For historical references, historians used to refer to Morocco as Al Maghrib al Aqşá ("The Farthest West"), disambiguating it from the historical region called the Maghreb. The name "Morocco" in many other languages originates from the name of the former capital, Marrakech (1). Morocco is a North West African country that is very close to Europe near Spain. It is neighbored by Algeria and Western Sahara and is strategically very important. It is separated from Spain in Europe by Straits of Gibraltar in Mediterranean Sea separating from Atlantic Ocean. It has long Atlantic coast. Muslims occupied Spain in medieval times through these narrow straits and established rule of Moors and finally they were driven out by Francs. AlQaeda leadership claims Spain as a land of Islam and is waging Jihad against it. Morocco is a strong ally of USA and is maintaining cordial relations eversince American independence. It has the oldest functional friendship treaty signed by legendary President John Adams and Jefferson with Moroccan King of the period. However it expressed its opposition to American war on Iraq stating that it would antagonize Muslim fundamentalists in the country.

Recent spread of terrorism globally had its own effects in Morocco too. AlQaeda that has spread its tentacles world wide particularly in backward Muslim countries has also targeted Morocco as one of its centers. Morocco has good tourist potential and many tourists visit the country and the government is pro American. This has inspired the AlQaeda net work to initiate suicide attacks on European tourists and poor Moroccans too get killed in these mindless acts. At least 45 people have been killed and about 100 injured in suicide bomb attacks in Morocco's largest city, Casablanca, local officials say the attacks on May 16, 2003 Friday night targeted a Jewish community centre, a Spanish restaurant and social club, a hotel and the Belgian consulate. Five explosions occurred within 30 minutes of each other. A Moroccan Government official said all the blasts were triggered by suicide bombers carrying explosives. At least six Europeans - two Spaniards, two Italians and two French - were also killed, a senior hospital official said. The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner says there are indications that the Casablanca blasts were al-Qaeda inspired - and were probably the work of a "North African cell linked to al-Qaeda (2).

In the post-Sept. 11 world, Karim Mejjati, former medical student from Morocco was the notorious and prominent undercover al Qaeda operative. The son of a French mother and Moroccan father, Mejjati had a privileged upbringing in Casablanca. He attended an exclusive French-language school and, at his father's urging, applied to medical school in France. He could speak several languages, had many passports and excelled at building bombs. He was also good at avoiding attention as he crisscrossed four continents to organize a wave of catastrophic attacks. On May 12, 2003, an Al Qaeda network that investigators say was put together by Mejjati in Saudi Arabia blew up three residential compounds for foreign workers in Riyadh, leaving 23 dead. Less than a week later, about 3,000 miles away, suicide bombers trained by Mejjati carried out the deadliest terrorist attacks in Moroccan history, killing 45 people in Casablanca. For the next two years, authorities in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and North America pressed a secret but intensive global manhunt for the French-schooled suspect, fearing that he had set up other al Qaeda sleeper cells that had yet to be activated. Saudi Arabia put him near the top of its list of most wanted terrorism suspects. In Morocco, he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years for the Casablanca bombings. The FBI named him in a global anti-terrorism alert, warning that he was suspected of planning attacks in the United States. According to investigators, his success in organizing terrorist networks in multiple countries is clear evidence that al Qaeda can still order devastating attacks around the world, even though most of its commanders have been killed or on the run since Sept. 11, 2001. The search for Mejjati, 37, ended in a small town in the heart of Saudi Arabia when he was killed in a gun battle with security forces who stumbled on his hideout. Now, investigators trying to retrace his footsteps acknowledge that they still do not know how many more sleeper cells the well-educated explosives expert may have created.

"They need guys like him in the field in order to remain effective," said Mohammed Darif, a political science professor at Mohammedia University in Morocco, who is an expert on Islamic radicals in the country and has studied Mejjati's background. "He was very valuable for them. They could use him in different places and rely on him to complete the job."

U.S. officials have said that the direct threat posed by al Qaeda's central leadership has diminished and that it has taken on a different role of providing encouragement, but little concrete assistance, to local cells or networks that plan attacks on their own. On Wednesday, in its annual report on global terrorism trends, the State Department said the shift illustrates "what many analysts believe is a new phase of the global war on terrorism, one in which local groups inspired by al Qaeda organize and carry out attacks with little or no support or direction from al Qaeda itself."

But an examination of Mejjati's role in organizing cells in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and possibly Spain -- three of the countries hardest hit by Islamic terrorism since Sept. 11 -- challenges that assumption. In interviews, security officials in Saudi Arabia said that Mejjati was dispatched from Afghanistan by top al Qaeda leaders in 2002 to help recruit and train a network of cells dedicated to overthrowing the Saudi royal family. Saudi officials said Mejjati served as the general strategist to the network's first chief, Yusuf Ayeri, who reported directly to al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Starting with the May 2003 bombing in Riyadh, the network has rattled the kingdom with a series of explosions, kidnappings and beheadings that have taken more than 90 lives and contributed to a global rise in oil prices. In Morocco, counterterrorism officials said Mejjati provided explosives training to a cell of Islamic radicals recruited from the slums surrounding Casablanca. (In fact Muslim slums around the world provide good hunting grounds for the recruitment by Islamic terrorists. Morocco is no exception. This is due to the fact that poor Muslims invariably blame all others for their economic and social backwardness setting aside their own inherited short comings by virtue of religious fundamentalism and narrow outlook on all matters) At first, investigators thought the operation was conceived and planned locally. But a suspect who later divulged Mejjati's name to interrogators led them to conclude that those responsible for the attacks were taking their cues from al Qaeda's top leadership.

Some U.S. and European officials say they believe Mejjati may also have been involved in the planning of the March 11, 2004, bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid in which 191 people were killed and more than 1,800 were wounded, although other investigators disagree. Spanish authorities have not issued an indictment against him. A local cell consisting mostly of Moroccan immigrants is believed to have carried out the attacks, but Spanish investigators have been unable to determine whether they acted on their own or took orders from al Qaeda middlemen such as Mejjati (4).

But there are sane persons and parties in Morocco who oppose fundamentalism and jihad and terrorism. "Moroccan voters have to choose between those who seek to push Morocco into a dark tunnel of obscurantism, hatred and war of religious sects and those who defend democracy and progress," said Socialist Union of Popular Forces chief Mohamed El Yazghi. North Africa has been on alert since al Qaeda's regional wing, Algeria-based Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, threatened to step up its war against "corrupt" Maghreb rulers and their Western allies. Seven Al-Qaeda-inspired suicide bombers blew themselves up in Casablanca, killing themselves and one police officer. A 30-year-old man tried but failed to blow himself up on a bus with foreign tourists at Meknes, 130 km from Rabat. Neither Al Qaeda in the Maghreb nor the cells linked to it in the region have a precise
political agenda. Moroccan secularist and Socialist politicians earlier launched the two-week campaign during which they will tried to trim the Islamist Justice and Development party (PJD)'s advance by linking the party to terrorism. As it is PJD has been dogged by suspicions it has a hidden agenda to turn Morocco into a purist Islamist state. They argued PJD, though it was not linked directly to terrorism, advocated an "ideology feeding terrorism". However PJD leaders say they are staunch opponents of radical Islamists and violence. "We are all part of the same front against terrorism, whether we are leftists or Islamists. We are all committed to protect the country," said Lahcen Daoudi, top PJD official. "Social misery, poverty and unemployment are factors which push youth to extremism. We in the PJD are aware that we must explain to the people that violence is useless," he added (4).

Morocco thus is also an active scene for AlQaeda inspired terrorist activities. It being very close to Europe near Spain draws many tourists and thus terrorists are targeting the foreign nationals like Jews, Europeans and Americans who go there on holidaying or on business. The government takes anti terrorist actions. The progressive Muslim nations that are with America are seen as the greatest villains by Al Qaeda and are targeted. This is the Wahabi spirit. Any one who does not subscribe to their understanding of Islam is the enemy and they are targeted. Thus AlQaeda targets Christian nations and other Muslim nations too who are progressive and are not with them. Therefore AlQaeda leadership establishes its cells and motivates Muslim fundamentalists and inspires them to attack Christians and Jews in these countries and thus is most dangerous. An important point to note now is the latest statements of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin laden (Believing he is still alive and kicking although many are of opinion that he is already dead either in Tora Bora bombings or due to sickness) in a tape released by American authorities. Bin Laden is exhorting all Americans to convert to Islam as a condition to stop his activities against them. This is no doubt ridiculous and can not be accepted and will not be accepted by the Americans. The bitterness will further grow. This is coercive religious conversion. In India in medieval times Islamic invaders resorted to conversion of defeated at the point of sword. What a ridiculous appeal? With this, the struggle against terrorism would take a new turn as a struggle of Islam against Christians. Will democrats who are up in arms and taken up cudgels against President George W Bush accept this advice from Bin Laden for conversion to Islam after they become rulers once George Bush goes to save their skins? The present struggles can get switched over as crusades. All Muslims are not terrorists. But most of the terrorists are Muslims. Appeal of Bin Laden would be brushed aside as insane statements from a perverted and sadistic fundamentalist. Probably most of the leaders would do same including the progressive Islamic states. A country like Morocco would laugh it off and take clubs against terrorists and AlQaeda men and these struggles would be long drawn ones till these mad men are eliminated with a bullet in their head. Thankfully Morocco is a close ally of USA. But this is the strong reason for its suffering at the hands of insane terrorists.

Bibliography

1. Morocco, Wikepedia, free encyclopedia, http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:0l9XGssiIzUJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Morocco+morocco&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=in

2. Terror blasts rock Casablanca, BBC news/Africa, Saturday, 17 May, 2003, 16:44 GMT 17:44 UK http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:5oEawhrhYZgJ:news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3035803.stm

+Morocco+and+AlQaeda+inspired+terrorism&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4

3. Craig Whitlock, Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 2, 2005; Page A01 Odyssey of an AlQaeda operative, News week, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/01/AR2005050100947.html

4. Lamine Ghanmi, Islamists to gain despite Qaeda fears, Date: August 27, 2007, http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:IffTl_pxOssJ:www.kuwaittimes.net/

read_news.php%3Fnewsid%3DNDE1NjQ2OA%3D%3D+Morocco+and+AlQaeda+inspired+terrorism&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10

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