Govt dismantles militant cell planning to create ISIS affiliate

dimeji akinloye

September 15, 2015 12:19 AM

He said that weapons, ammunition, teasers, swords and bomb materials seized from the hideouts were displayed for the journalists to see.

ISIS recruits.

Moroccan authorities said on Monday they had dismantled a militant cell planning to create affiliate of Islamic State in the country.

Abdelhak Khayyam, Head of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), made the announcement during a press conference in Sale (Morocco).

He said that security forces seized weapons and bomb-making materials when their hideout was raided, adding that the cell was the latest in a series of radical groups security agents had uncovered.

He said that five members of the group had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and planned to create a local offshoot, called the Caliphate Soldiers in Morocco.

Khayyam said the group, operating in the southern city of Essaouira and the central town of Sidi Allal Al-Bahraoui, got its name from the Algerian group of the Caliphate Soldiers.

"The weapons came to Morocco through the eastern borders with Algeria,’’ Khayyam said.

He said that hundreds of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb states like Tunisia and Algeria had joined Islamist militant forces in Syria's war.

"Some are threatening to return and create a new jihadi wings in their home countries.

"Five members of the latest cell were planning to leave for Syria and Iraq after perpetrating an attack,’’ he said.

Morocco, Western ally against Islamist militancy, often announces it had broken up radical cells accused of plotting attacks.

The country had suffered several bomb attacks by Islamist militants, most recently in 2011 in Marrakesh.

dimeji akinloye