MOROCCO: TERRORIST NETWORK DISRUPTED BUT MANY

C O N F I D E N T I A L RABAT 000171 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/23/2018 TAGS: PTER PINR PINS PREL KISL MO SUBJECT: MOROCCO: TERRORIST NETWORK DISRUPTED BUT MANY QUESTIONS REMAIN Classified By: DCM Robert P. Jackson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Summary: Moroccan authorities arrested 32 persons including several minor Islamist politicians in mid-February and reported seizing a significant quantity of weapons, from what they called the Belliraj terror network, after its leader, the Moroccan-Belgian Abdelkader Belliraj. In televised remarks on February 21, Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa said the group planned to target foreign tourists, Moroccan Jews, and senior Government of Morocco (GOM) officials. He charged that various members of the network had contacts over the years with members of al-Qa'ida and al-Qa'ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),its nascent Maghreb affiliate, the former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC),and Lebanese Hezbollah (but not Iran). The list of offenses, particularly by Belliraj, included murders and a major bank robbery in Europe going back nearly two decades. ¶2. (C) The disparate nature of the detainees, the long timing, the varied offenses, and some inconsistencies in government statements have many observers scratching their heads. Some politicians and human rights groups are crying foul -- the main arrested politicians were generally viewed as moderates, who had contacts with the Embassy. Their party was declared illegal by the Prime Minister. We know that Spanish authorities were involved in some of the investigations, and the European link appears strong. But word on the street is skeptical. We do not know enough to rule out the possibility that a real but more limited network had been blown into a red herring, which some see as a warning to the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD). Mission elements will continue to track the many threads of this amorphous case. If the government's charges hold up, they may indicate a much wider radicalism problem in Morocco than previously thought. End summary. -------------- Diverse Makeup -------------- ¶3. (C) Those arrested, mostly in Casablanca and Nador, the gateway to the northern Spanish enclave of Melilla, were a diverse lot that included professors, pharmacists, computer and telecommunications technicians, and a police superintendent. Most significantly, the Moroccan police arrested two nationally known political figures, Mohammed Moatassim and Mohammed Marwani, Secretary Generals respectively of the &Civilization Alternative8 (a tiny Islamist party) and the &The Nation8 (an Islamist association that had been seeking party status),as well as Mae El Ainain Abadila, a Sahrawi member of the PJD, and Abdelhafid Sriti, a correspondent of the Hezbollah television channel Al Manar -- an odd lot indeed. -------------- Capabilities and Targets -------------- ¶4. (C) Benmoussa described Belliraj, a Moroccan living in Belgium with dual citizenship, as very dangerous. He said Belliraj had committed six murders between 1986 and 1989, including a Jewish leader in Belgium whose death had been earlier attributed to Abu Nidal. Authorities displayed a large collection of arms they said were found, including two Uzi machine guns, nine AK-47s, seven Skorpio pistols, sixteen other assorted automatic weapons and detonators. Benmoussa said they planned to assassinate Moroccan ministers, members of the military, and Jewish citizens. The group was spread over varied geographic locations to include, among other cities in Morocco: Casablanca, Rabat, and Nador. The network was said to have financed itself through group member support, smuggling, and robberies in Europe, one of which included the Brinks, Inc. Headquarters in Luxembourg in 2000, in which several Belliraj group members, in league with other unspecified criminals, made off with 17.7 million Euros, which were later laundered through legitimate businesses in Morocco. -------------- Domestic and Foreign Connections -------------- ¶5. (C) Benmoussa said that the network had confirmed links to several domestic Islamist organizations to include the following: Chabiba Islamiya (MJIM),an early Islamist youth group connected to the Renewal and Unification Movement, which evolved into the present-day PJD; the Moroccan Islamic Revolutionary Movement (MRIM) and the Harakat al-Mudjahidin Fi Al Maghreb (two groups previously unknown to us); Al Haraka Min Ajli Al Umma, an Islamic group seeking party status; and the Al Badil Al Hadari political party. (Note: The Badil Al-Hadari (&the Civilizational Alternative") is a marginal Islamist party which garnered 15,600 votes (0.3 percent of total votes) in the September 2007 legislative elections. When we met them in the spring in 2007, the tone of their discourse was moderate, without any hints of extremism, and they had reputation of being leftist-Islamist. End note.) Prime Minister El Fassi announced on February 20 that he had invoked his legal authority to dissolve the Badil Al-Hadari party. ¶6. (C) Belliraj, his brother Salah, and at least two other arrested network members had been living in Belgium, according to MFA Political/Military Chief Karim Halim. In his remarks to the press, Benmoussa charged that the group was tied to the Algeria and northern Mali-based AQIM and the Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group (GICM) terrorist organizations, although he did not elaborate on these links. He also said that the group had links to the Pakistan-based al-Qa'ida, and had an aborted dialogue with Hezbollah for training. ¶7. (C) The range of detainees appears to be relatively more diverse than any Moroccan group in the past, diversity even beyond the Ansar al-Mehdi terrorist cell that was disrupted in Morocco in 2006. It suggests that terrorists in Morocco are emerging from all walks of life, not just &poor city youth.8 A survey of initial reactions indicates Moroccans were shocked at the group's size and the intellectual quality of many of the group's members. ¶8. (C) It is unclear how closely Belliraj, his brother and the other two Moroccans, who had been living in Belgium, were working operationally with the alleged Moroccan-based members of the terrorist nebula. The alleged connections to al-Qa'ida, Hezbollah, and even GICM appear at most to have been individually based and historical in nature and not currently operationally relevant. The group,s alleged contacts with AQIM, a group known to have trained Moroccan jihadists in the past and of greatest current concern, remains unelaborated on by GOM officials. ¶9. (C) Locally engaged staff (LES) and other locals report that the man in the street is highly skeptical, with many looking for a red herring. PJD officials have suggested the roundup might be a "message" directed at their party, which recently launched a moralization campaign aimed at the coming legislative elections. PJD firebrand and former parliamentary chief Mustapha Ramid told the press that the "network" and the decades-old charges didn't make sense. Our LES reports, however, that most Moroccans do not believe the Government would arrest such high profile Islamist politicians without good cause, a belief shared by the Embassy. The political party ban has opened the GOM up to criticism of denial of due process and conspiracy theories *- already seen in the press -* that the ban was politically motivated to dampen the appeal of Islamist groups in the run up to municipal elections in 2009. The Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH),a far-left human rights NGO that traditionally has had cool relations with Islamist political parties, criticized the GOM,s arrest of the politicians, calling for their release, and denouncing the banning of the Al-Badli Al-Hadari party. ¶10. (C) Comment: We can offer now only an initial reaction. While details of the group remain sketchy, Moroccan authorities assessed that the threat had to be stopped. We are concerned about the materiel seized as well as the scope and potential imminence of targeting. Inconsistencies in government reactions; th very long term of alleged acts, some going backbefore widespread Islamist terrorism; and our own contacts with some of the detainees, who would have had to have been very good actors, leave us to share the questioning approach of the informed street view. However, if there is less than meets the eye, the question then becomes, "Why?" A lengthier, more definitive presentation from the Government, especially linking this apparently amorphous collection into a coherent network, may address many people,s questions. If the government's charges hold up, they may indicate a much wider radicalism problem in Morocco than previously thought. End Comment. ***************************************** Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website; http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/rabat ***************************************** Riley