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Islamists warn Morocco launching crackdown
Morocco's intelligence services are carrying out a major crackdown against suspected Islamic militants, and have formed squads of tribal leaders and vendors of "moderate" literature and tapes to people outside mosques, a message posted to Islamist websites on Wednesday warned.  Headed 'Latest News from Morocco' it tells the "mujahadeen" to be "very careful". "The biggest US secret services operation in Africa has long been stationed in the city of Tangiers," the message says."In Morocco, people are happy to accept religious observance, especially young men and women, who have recently begun to wear the veil. Victory is close at hand if God wills it," the message concludes.The message, signed by a certain Abu Musab al-Iraqi, is apparently targeted at jihadists abroad who may be planning terrorist attacks in Morocco - a NATO partner country and one of the United States' allies in its war on terror, as well as an exponent of moderate Islam. Young Moroccans are favourably disposed to radical Islam and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's jihadist message, according to al-Iraqi. The message is likely to increase Moroccan intelligence services' already heightened state of alert. Analysts believe Morocco is third on al-Qaeda's list of target countries, after Saudi Arabia and Jordan, according to Moroccan daily al-Alam, which quotes unnamed Moroccan secret service sources. Earlier this month, immediately after the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, a number of messages, signed by the Moroccan Armed Islamic group, which threatened the 'apostate' government of Morocco, appeared on Islamist websites. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-11-16 |
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