U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2005 - Morocco

Under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, the Moroccan Government implemented important internal reforms to address the socio-economic conditions that create opportunity for extremist recruitment. In May 2005, King Mohammed VI launched the National Initiative for Human Development to combat poverty, create jobs, and improve infrastructure. This $1.2 billion initiative targets Morocco's poorest rural areas and worst urban slums with the goal of eliminating the economic conditions that foster exclusion and despair.

Morocco continued implementing reforms to the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs (MOIA), first announced in 2004, to promote religious moderation and tolerance. The reforms included measures to counter extremist ideology within Koranic schools and mosques, and a one-year training program for incoming male and female imams initiated in April. The Ministry also launched a radio station whose daily broadcasts cover most of Morocco, and continued development of its TV station and website.

In May 2003, Moroccan suicide bombers affiliated with the Salafiya Jihadiya movement attacked several sites in Casablanca, killing 45 people (including the 12 bombers) and injuring 100 others. The government's swift and ongoing crackdown of the Salafiya Jihadiya movement resulted in the arrest of an estimated 3,000 extremists and the sentencing of at least 900 individuals for crimes under counterterrorism laws. Many of these cases were still active in the judicial system, which acquitted at least nine suspects and reduced the prison sentences of at least 30 individuals in 2005.

On March 22, the Judicial Police arrested seven individuals from a Salafiya Jihadiya cell in Mohammedia suspected of planning attacks against a supermarket and restaurants along the coastline near Casablanca. In July, Moroccan authorities arrested seven more individuals from another Salafiya Jihadiya cell in the city of Sale near the capital of Rabat.

Moroccan police linked the Sale cell to six Moroccans whom Algerian authorities had returned to Morocco after their arrest while training with militants from the Algerian terrorist group GSPC. In November, Moroccan security forces dismantled a 17-member incipient terrorist network that was linked to small terrorist groups in Iraq. Two of the five Moroccans who were detained in Guantanamo Bay and returned to Morocco in August 2004 were among those arrested.

Moroccan-born extremists associated with the al-Qaida-affiliated Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM) were implicated in the March 2004, train blasts in Madrid. Although the recent dismantlement of GICM cells in Europe weakened the group, individual members remained at large.