LOC23:30
20:30 GMT
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