On the night of May 16, 2003, 5 synchronized suicide bombings killed 43 people in Casablanca; it was the deadliest and the most devastating terrorist attack the country has ever known. That event left physical and psychological scars that changed Moroccans’ lives forever, including that of Mohamed Hajib.
However, in the fight against terrorism, Mohamed Hajib chose to stand on the other side of the battlefield. He left Germany, where he had been radicalized at the “Ali” mosque in Duisburg, for Afghanistan in order to engage in “Jihad.”
With the money he had raised from selling around twenty bikes, Mohamed Hajib — aka Abu Omar Al-Almani — set his sights on becoming the next Osama bin Laden. He sent his wife and children to Morocco before embarking on a journey with his companion, Youssef, a German citizen of Palestinian decent. As the brothers in arms journeyed to Afghanistan, they passed by the city of Mashhad in Iran, the mountainous region of Waziristan and Panjgur in Pakistan.
Abu Omar Al-Almani then met his mentor Abu Abderrahman – aka Abu Hamza – who had him spending $1000 on a Kalashnikov rifle and 120 cartridges. His companion Youssef bought the same things for half the price. Mohamed Hajib was hurt, but he decided not to dwell on it, drooling over his long-awaited “internship.”
With his turban and long hair, as it was impossible for him to grow a beard, Abu Omar Al-Almani was sometimes entrusted with household duties and grocery shopping for a dozen widows of Azeri fighters. And as if that wasn’t enough, the scorching heat and dirty conditions the Al Qaeda servant went through soon gave him Malaria, which then turned into an acute hepatitis.
Confronted with this bitter reality, particularly after his friend, the Algerian arms dealer “Abu Souleiman,” had told him that the battle they were taking was against Afghan and Pakistani soldiers and not against American troops, Hajib finally decided to throw away his “Chai” kettle and go back to Germany. But he was subsequently deported to Morocco, where he spent 7 years in prison for financing terrorism, including 2 years for inciting a prison riot.
Abu Omar Al-Almani, who once wanted to join his Jihad-waging brothers to become a martyr and finally join his 72 beautiful every-day virgins, ended up being a mere servant.
He eventually managed to return to “Germanistan” that welcomed him with open arms along with some fleeing ISIS followers. He cut his curls, tossed his turban, and took to social media to spill out his anger at Morocco.
This iscluded calling on Moroccans to engage in a violent revolution as a form of repentance, to commit acts of violence and suicide attacks with the police and other bodies of Morocco’s security corps as the main targets.
As Al Qaeda did not take the “bagboy” seriously, Mohamed Hajib took matters into his own hands and decided to openly spread terror while – and perhaps knowing that – the world was watching.
Ossama Bin Laden may be dead but his ideology isn’t. With the recent developments in Afghanistan, the terrorist threat that was once lurking in the shadows is now lying around in plain sight, bringing back dark memories to many.
And although events such as the 9/11 attacks or the 2003 Casablanca bombings can seem to many as distant memories, the scars are still present, and so is the war against terrorism.
This is even more pertinent in Hajib’s case, who is now in denial about his terrorist past and – with curious backing from a European country – seems to have made it his calling to tarnish Morocco’s reputation.
No longer than four months ago, the former terrorist convict made the rounds in the news cycle when he expectedly accused Morocco of the largely discredited torture and prionser abuse claims he has long peddled on various social media platforms.
Such claims, which Hajib has been broadcasting on his YouTube and Facebook pages since he left prison, have been compellingly refuted by none other than Hajib’s former cellmates and brothers in arms.
Hassan Al Khatab, the ex-Emir of a Salafist cell that was dismantled in 2006, has been a vocal deconstructor of Hajib’s “lies.” Among other counter-arguments, Al Khatab pointed to many inconsistencies and “falsehoods” in Hajib’s telling of his stay in a Moroccan prison. He has argued, for instance, that the glaring discrepancy between Hajib’s claims on social media and his real experiences in prison suggest speak volumes about his real goal.
Other ex-terror convicts have equally disputed claims of totrue and other systemic abuses, directly or indirectly dismissing Hajib’s appealing but unfounded story.
As is often the case, Hajib and many commentators or critics with an apparent bent on presenting Morocco as a backward or repressive state often operate from the premise that vigorously and passionately repeated impressions or misperceptions can end up being considered as the truth.
When the point is to shock the audience in order to gain their sympathy, it is effective to sideline the facts, dismiss details, and stick instead to a simple, uncomplicated narrative that can best galvanize emotions and feelings. And it helps a lot when the target person or country already faces similar campaigns from other actors.
We saw that in Morocco’s diplomatic spat with Germany around, among other reasons, Berlin’s refusal to extradite Hajib. For Morocco, however, the most surprising element in the spat was not even that Germany declined an extradition request.
Instead, Rabat complained, it was surprising that German officers could choose to “inappropriately” handle “sensitive information “communicated by the Moroccan security services to their German counterparts.”
Detailing Morocco’s success in de-radicalization and counter-terrorsim, Moroccan security expert Mohamed Salah Tamek recently pointed out that the North African country’s widely applauded approach to radical combatants should have at least convinced Germany to take its warnings about Hajib seriously.
The idea here is that, as Western governments and their counterparts across the world vow to learn from the past mistakes in the important but so far failing “War on terror,” it is crucial not to be complacent with radicals who pose as “reformed” or unjustly tortured until they mobilize the means to strike their targets again.
