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Spain attacks turn spotlight on Moroccan militants

MADRID — As the Spanish authorities piece together details of the cell behind the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, their probe has centred on a dozen men of Moroccan origin.

MADRID — As the Spanish authorities piece together details of the cell behind the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, their probe has centred on a dozen men of Moroccan origin.

Some of the suspects, including Younes Abouyaaqoub — believed to be the driver of the van that ploughed into people on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas boulevard, were born in Morocco and moved to Spain.

At least one of the others was born in Spain. It would not be the first time radicalised Moroccan youths living in Europe have been at the centre of terror attacks on the continent — Moroccans were involved in the Paris attacks in November 2015 and the Brussels airport bombings four months later.

Yet in Morocco there have been no significant attacks since the bombing of a tourist restaurant in Marrakesh in 2011 killed 17 people.

Moroccan security services have dismantled dozens of cells recruiting fighters for the Islamic State in Syria.

But analysts say jihadi groups have found it increasingly difficult to operate in the country since the authorities started beefing up and professionalising their security. This began after 12 suicide bombers blew themselves up during one night in 2003 at multiple locations in Casablanca, the kingdom’s economic hub, killing 33 people.

“Morocco has been very successful at driving deep underground any major Al Qaeda or IS group,” said Mr Issandr Amrani, north Africa director at the International Crisis Group.

“There hasn’t been a single successful attack since the formation of the IS (in 2014). Moroccan jihadis have largely gone to fight abroad, rather than stay at home because the security lockdown is too pervasive.”

Between 2011 and 2013, the authorities turned a blind eye to Moroccan jihadis joining militants fighting in Syria’s civil war, Mr Amrani and others say. As uprisings swept across the Arab world and pro-democracy protests erupted in Morocco, Rabat allowed would-be foreign fighters to travel unhindered rather than risk them exploiting uncertainty at home.

From 2012, about 1,600 Moroccans are thought to have travelled to Syria, according to the Moroccan authorities. The Crisis Group says an estimated 2,000 Moroccan dual nationals left Europe’s immigrant communities to join the Syrian conflict after it erupted in 2011. “The attitude (in Morocco) was good riddance, let them direct their energies elsewhere,” said Mr Amrani.

That began to change after the rise of the IS in 2014 as concerns grew at the prospect of militants returning from Syria’s battlefields and launching jihadist campaigns in Morocco.

Security was tightened at borders and anti-terrorism laws were strengthened to impose heavy jail terms and fines on anyone who travelled to join militant groups abroad.

Mr Amrani says that despite the involvement of Moroccan jihadis in terrorism operations in Europe and the large number of Moroccans who became foreign fighters in Syria, there has been no evidence so far that the attacks in Europe were plotted by groups in Morocco.

Mr Abdelhak Khiame, head of Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations, the country’s counter-terrorism agency, told the BBC last year that the radicalisation of Moroccan youths in Europe was “due to factors in the countries where they live”.

“Yes, these people have Moroccan roots but they were born, grew and acquired values from Western countries,” he said. “Even their education in Islam was not carried out by those who (teach religion) in Morocco.”

The kingdom, which lies across the narrow Strait of Gibraltar from Spain, is credited for its security co-operation with European governments. Mr Khiame has been quoted as saying that information provided by Morocco has helped foil attacks in Europe.

Ms Carola Garcia-Calvo, senior analyst on international terrorism in Spain’s Real Instituto Elcano, a think-tank, said that the level of security co-operation between Rabat and Madrid was “very, very, high”. She said the two countries had worked together to dismantle IS recruitment networks that often straddled borders.

She pointed out that in some cases these networks included people in Morocco as well as members in Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves in north Africa inside the kingdom’s borders. “Some 178 people have been arrested in Spain since 2013 for links with jihadi cells and networks,” she said. “Around 40 per cent of those people are Moroccan nationals and 40 per cent are Spanish.” FINANCIAL TIMES

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