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Rabat – Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ) dismantled in the early morning of Friday a three-member terror cell with links to ISIS, in the northern city of Tetouan.
BCIJ led the operation in different areas of the city, resulting in the arrest of the cell’s three members. The suspects are aged between 21 and 38 years old.
The three members pledged allegiance to ISIS in a video that proves their orientation, according to Medi1 TV. The footage shows the arrestees vowing to carry out terrorist attacks to undermine Morocco’s security and stability.
The news comes as Morocco’s security services are on high alert after thwarting a number of terrorist attacks in recent months. On September 10, BCIJ led a remarkably co-ordinated operation that ended with the arrest of a five-member terror cell in Tangier and Tiflet, Skhirat, and Temara near Rabat.
Head of the BCIJ Abdelhak Khiame said that two of the suspects, including the main defendant, showed “violent resistance” during the September operation.
On October 27, a suspected terrorist from the September 10 arrest murdered a prison employee in the local prison of Tiflet, 67 kilometers from Rabat.
The ISIS affiliate also injured three other prison employees when they intervened to save their colleague.
BCIJ recently succeeded in dismantling another three-member, ISIS-linked terrorist group in the city of Agadir.
The members of the Agadir terror cell sought to obtain firearms and materials used in the manufacture of explosive devices.
In 2018, BCIJ also dismantled a three-member terror cell operating in Tetouan and Agadir.
Since 2003, the country has witnessed three tragic terrorist attacks: The May 16 bombings in Casablanca in 2003, the Argana attack in Marrakech in 2011, and the murder of two Scandinavian tourists in Imlil in 2018.
Meanwhile, Morocco’s General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DGST) announced last month that the country has dismantled 207 terrorist cells since 2002.
In the last three years alone, Moroccan security services dismantled 32 terrorist cells, the majority of which were affiliated to ISIS.
