Morocco nets 2000 'terrorists'
2004-05-12 20:16
Rabat - Two thousand people have been charged with "terrorist activities" in Morocco since last year's attacks in the northern city of Casablanca, which killed 45 people, Justice Minister Mohamed Bouzoubaa said on Wednesday.
Several cases involving alleged terrorist acts are currently before the north African kingdom's courts, and 30 international arrest warrants have been issued in connection with the Casablanca attacks, MAP news agency quoted the minister as saying.
Ninety percent of suspects sought by the Moroccan authorities after the Casablanca attacks, which on May 16 last year targeted a hotel, restaurants popular with foreigners and Jewish landmarks, have been arrested, according to Bouzoubaa.
A concerted international effort was necessary to effectively fight extremism, he said, adding that a fair solution to the Middle East crisis would help nip global terror groups' activities in the bud.
He added that many of the suspects questioned over the Casablanca attacks said they were heavily influenced by events in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Afghanistan.
General Hamidou Laanigri, who is in charge of domestic security in Morocco, in an interview with France's Figaro newspaper last week blamed the Casablanca attacks on "Moroccan members of al-Qaeda who had met Osama bin Laden, theoretician Ayman al-Zawahiri and operations chief Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi."
Al-Zarqawi is alleged to have decapitated kidnapped US national Nicholas Berg in Iraq, in a gruesome killing captured on video and shown Tuesday on an al-Qaeda-linked website.