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Morocco says breaks up important jihadist network
Mon 18 Feb 2008, 19:21 GMT
RABAT, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Moroccan security forces broke up a terrorist network with jihadist tendencies on Monday that was planning attacks in the north African country, a government official said.
The official confirmed a report by the state news agency MAP which said that an investigation had "led to the identification and arrest of the main active members of the network."
"Twenty-three of them, including the network's leader Abdelkader Belliraj, were taken into custody," in the operation on Monday evening, MAP reported.
The group, which it described as "very dangerous", had links with other organisations active in Morocco and abroad, it added.
Moroccan authorities have broken up dozens of suspected cells of religious militants in recent years and the country's prisons now hold hundreds of Islamists.
Seven men blew themselves up in Morocco's economic capital Casablanca in March and April last year, killing themselves and a police officer.
A spate of much deadlier bombings has hit neighbouring Algeria and security analysts suspect radical Islamist groups of stepping up cooperation to overthrow north African governments. (Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer, editing by Tim Pearce)
Mon 18 Feb 2008, 19:21 GMT
RABAT, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Moroccan security forces broke up a terrorist network with jihadist tendencies on Monday that was planning attacks in the north African country, a government official said.
The official confirmed a report by the state news agency MAP which said that an investigation had "led to the identification and arrest of the main active members of the network."
"Twenty-three of them, including the network's leader Abdelkader Belliraj, were taken into custody," in the operation on Monday evening, MAP reported.
The group, which it described as "very dangerous", had links with other organisations active in Morocco and abroad, it added.
Moroccan authorities have broken up dozens of suspected cells of religious militants in recent years and the country's prisons now hold hundreds of Islamists.
Seven men blew themselves up in Morocco's economic capital Casablanca in March and April last year, killing themselves and a police officer.
A spate of much deadlier bombings has hit neighbouring Algeria and security analysts suspect radical Islamist groups of stepping up cooperation to overthrow north African governments. (Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer, editing by Tim Pearce)