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Moroccan authorities break terrorist cell

RABAT, June 26 (KUNA) - Moroccan security services announced on Friday they disbanded a terrorist cell which has been active in the North African kingdom and southern Spain.
Five members of a terrorist cell belonging to a radical Islamic movement, and operating in Morocco and Spain, have been arrested, Morocco's Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP) reported, citing security sources.
The five terrorists work under the Salafiya Jihadia, an extremist Islamist movement that aims to oust the Moroccan government and create an Islamic state, the sources said.
The cell is said to be led by a person identified as Abou Yassine, 34 years, a former Salafia Jihadia activist who served a two-year jail term for involvement with Ansar Al Mahdi cell.
Abou Yassine, who was released in 2008, has been every since trying to set up this cell in the Moroccan, Spanish-occupied town of Ceuta, and had also ties with the activists of a terrorist cell in Sweden and Afghan Moroccan the sources said. He has been providing to its members his experience as an inveterate militant and a former drug trafficker in Spain.
Security services impounded three vehicles registered in Ceuta, in addition to a large patch of documents and audio CDs and tapes preaching jihad and encouraging suicide operations and the execution of Al Qaida hostages.
The group has also established ties with traffickers in Morocco and trade links with French terrorist Robert Richard Antoine Pierre, known as Abou Abderrahmane, the report added.
On May 12 the security services said they disbanded another cell called "Al-Murabetin Al-Jodod" (New Garrisons) which was reportedly planning for terror attacks in the kingdom.
Morocco has toughened crackdown on terrorism, especially after it was shaken by a terror blast that killed 45 and injured scores of others in Casablanca in 2003. (end) ms.gb KUNA 262330 Jun 09NNNN