Report: Iraq-Based Jihadists Seek to Expand War to North Africa
By Evan Kohlmann
According to reports in Arab media, personnel from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) visited the Moroccan city of Rabat last week to investigate an apparent increase in the number of Moroccan mujahideen volunteers traveling to Iraq in order to join Al-Qaida. CIA officials allegedly scheduled the visit after Moroccan intelligence services presented them with the names of two young men from the northern Moroccan town of Tetouan who had recently executed suicide bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Reportedly, the men were accompanied on their journey to Iraq by at least seven other would-be jihadist companions from their neighborhood in Tetouan (who remain at large).
The Moroccan government has grave concerns that elements from the nascent Moroccan Tawhid wal-Jihad Movement and the Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC) are intent upon using the cauldron in Iraq to mobilize a new armed front for Al-Qaida in North Africa. Local media also reports that Moroccan authorities have recently intercepted a telephone conversation between a militant inside Morocco and another Moroccan national hiding in Syria. The two men discussed a plan to travel to Algeria in order to receive advanced training from veteran GSPC instructors and to establish an official joint Al-Qaida branch covering all of North Africa.
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