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Morocco's rumbling "war on terror" faces an important public test tomorrow in a mass trial of extreme Islamists accused of planning the violent overthrow of the most liberal regime in the Maghreb. Fifty members of the Ansar al-Mehdi group are charged with plotting terrorist acts aimed at replacing the pro-western monarchy with an Islamist state. Morocco's security services said at the time of their arrest last August that the suspects were planning an even bigger attack than the bombings that killed 45 people in Casablanca in May 2003. More than 3,000 people have been arrested since then and hundreds convicted of terrorism charges. The round-up reportedly followed tip-offs from the British and German intelligence services. Terrorism is back on the agenda after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a cybercafe in the Sidi Moumen slum neighbourhood of Casablanca this month and a new wave of arrests last week. On Monday magistrates charged a man with leading the military wing of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group and taking part in both the Casablanca attacks and the Madrid train bombings of 2004.
The mass trial, in Rabat, will be closely watched for evidence of the true scale of the threat to the kingdom of 30 million, and for signs that the secular-minded government can balance its fight against terrorism with respect for human rights and political Islam - especially in an election year.
The Ansar al-Mehdi group, led by Hassan el-Khattab, known as Abu Osama, is said to have recruited members of the police and the armed forces, ringing alarm bells in a country with a long history of military coups. The group has been compared to the Algerian-based GSPC, which recently declared allegiance to al-Qaida, and there are suggestions the two may have plans to link up for regional activity. Alleged targets of planned suicide attacks included a military airfield, the US embassy in Rabat, and tourist destinations. Police seized explosives of a type similar to those used in the Casablanca attacks and detonators similar to those used in the Madrid bombings.
Human rights groups and lawyers claim the defendants have been mistreated and evidence obtained under duress. But foreign observers say the trial seems to have been carefully prepared. If convicted, the accused face up to 30 years in prison.
One consequence of the arrests was the cancellation of Morocco's system of compulsory military service to deprive jihadists of the experience of weapons training at the expense of the state. Another has been to focus attention on the role of social deprivation in a country with a fast-growing, liberalising economy but a huge gap between the elite and the poor. "This is about impoverishment, ignorance and discontent linking up to a wider cause," said Claire Spencer, a Maghreb expert at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.