Rabat – The UK has updated its foreign travel advisory for Morocco, advising its citizens to be “vigilant at all times.”
The UK said that “terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Morocco,” recalling the Imlil murders when terrorists decapitated two Scandinavian tourists near Mount Toubkal.
Britain also warned that “attacks could be indiscriminate or target foreigners.”
The warning mentioned the April 2011 terror attack when “17 people were killed and 25 injured in a large explosion caused by a bomb in Marrakech at the Argana restaurant in Djema el-Fna Square.”
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“There’s considered to be a heightened threat of terrorist attack globally against UK interests and British nationals, from groups or individuals motivated by the conflict in Iraq and Syria. You should be vigilant at this time,” said the warning.
Last month, in a controversial move, the UK revoked the citizenship of a teenaged girl, Shamima Begum, who had joined ISIS in Syria in 2015 but wanted to return to the UK after giving birth. Begum’s three-week-old son died earlier this month in Syria, the third of her children to die in infancy, according to the Guardian.
Canada also updated its travel advisory for Morocco on December 20, days after authorities found the bodies of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, from Denmark and Maren Ueland, 28, of Norway on December 17.
Morocco has experienced comparatively fex terror attacks.
The Argana cafe bomb was the last terror attack in Morocco before the Imlil murders.
Morocco’s counterterrorism strategy, which was modernized and updated in 2015 with the creation of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), an elite anti-terrorism police bureau, has helped curb terrorist threats in the country.
Following the Imlil murders, senior Moroccan officials said that every country faces the threat of terrorism.
Morocco’s security services arrested at least 22 suspects in connection to the murder of the two Scandinavian tourists.
