Rabat - The recent arrest in Tangier of a Chadian terrorist revealed a qualitative shift in the strategy of the terrorist group Islamic Stae (ISIS) chief of Morocco's Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), Abdelhak El Khayam, said.
Rabat – The recent arrest in Tangier of a Chadian terrorist revealed a qualitative shift in the strategy of the terrorist group Islamic Stae (ISIS) chief of Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), Abdelhak El Khayam, said.
“The recent arrest of an individual from the Sahel region – specifically from Chad, and who entered Morocco on instructions of ISIS leaders to set up terrorist cells inside the Kingdom – revealed a qualitative shift in the strategy adopted by this terrorist organization targeting Morocco’s stability,” ” El Khayam said in an interview published Wednesday by Moroccan newspaper “Al Massae “.
He recalled that ISIS recruits terrorists from Morocco to send them later to areas of tension, especially in Iraq and Syria, in order to participate in quasi-military training and be prepared to commit terrorist and suicide operations, before bringing them back to Morocco to carry out serious terrorist attacks.
He said that security authorities’ efforts make ISIS to think seriously about sending people of the Sahel region, which has exactly happened in the case of the Chadian national who was recently arrested in the city of Tangier, adding that the accused got instructions to establish direct contacts with jihadists linked to the organization of the “Islamic state” in Algeria.
Asked about the possible relationship between illegal immigration from sub-Saharan African countries and the training of terrorist sleeper cells, El Khayam said that many of these immigrants enter illegally the Moroccan territory via Algeria, which requires more efforts from security services to follow in their footsteps and control their movements, be they Africans, Syrians or from other countries.
Regarding other terrorist threats faced by Morocco, El Khayam mentioned the tension zone located in Tindouf (south-eastern Algeria), where many Moroccan citizens are held against their will by Algeria-backed separatists, noting that recent judicial investigations revealed a direct involvement of the Polisario separatist movement in planned terrorist attacks against Morocco,
The strengthening of the Moroccan legal arsenal and forward-looking strategy adopted so far have helped to thwart several operations, said El Khayam, adding that the BCIJ dismantled in the space of one year 29 terrorist cells that planned attacks to undermine Morocco’s stability.
With MAP
