CASABLANCA — The crowd tensed as the man entered the busy government office, fumbling at his clothing. When he stopped and angrily cried out “Allah!” there was a panicked stampede for the door.
The man wasn't the suicide bomber the crowd suspected and feared. He was an ordinary Moroccan who cried out to God after rummaging through his pockets for his wallet and discovering he'd been the victim of a pickpocket.
But the hysterical reaction of the others who had lined up that early May day to pay their water bills speaks to the growing fear that this sweltering port city, and all of North Africa, has become the latest target of al-Qaeda and its global jihad.
After being struck by six suicide bombings in the past two months, Casablanca is a city on edge. Though the country is working hard to maintain the smiley face it presents to the three million tourists who visit each year, the grin is an increasingly nervous one.
For years, Morocco has been a net exporter of Islamic militants. Its nationals were implicated in the 2004 Madrid train bombing, and Zacarias Moussaoui was convicted as the “20th hijacker” in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Though there are few statistics about such things, Western diplomats here refer to anecdotal evidence that there are more Moroccans among the foreign jihadis in Iraq than any other nationality.
Now some are turning their religious-inspired fury against their own government. Earlier this month, the Moroccan government rounded up 20 radicals it said were recruiting for al-Qaeda in towns across the country.
The recent spate of attacks in Casablanca brought back grim memories of May, 2003, when a dozen suicide bombers struck the city, killing 45 people. The U.S. consulate in the city, which was the presumed target of one of a pair of suicide bombers who detonated themselves nearly simultaneously last month, remains closed over fears of further attacks.
Though experts disagree on how strong the ties are between the groups behind the attacks in Morocco and a recent spate of bombings in neighbouring Algeria, there is little question that the al-Qaeda network has established itself more firmly than ever before in North Africa, posing an unprecedented threat to the region's governments. Last fall, the terrorist network formally announced the formation of a regional arm, the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.
“I don't consider the new organization as a simple change of name. We're facing a new group that wants to unite all the Salafis and jihadis of the Maghreb,” said Mohammed Darif, an expert on Islamic movements at King Hassan II University in the city of Mohammedia. Salafis are followers of a fundamentalist strain of Islam that began in Saudi Arabia and whose followers often use violence in their pursuit of a pure Islamic world. “It's a serious menace, a danger to all the governments of the region,” Mr. Darif said.
Algeria has emerged as a regional centre; there, militants who took part in the country's bloody 1990s civil war were the first to adopt the al-Qaeda banner. Experts say that Libyans and Tunisians seeking jihad are known to train in the country, under the tutelage of Algerian veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. The primary goal of the organization is to recruit fighters willing to travel to Iraq.
The Moroccan wing is believed to operate fairly independently, maintaining separate links with the al-Qaeda leadership.
Many of the causes that appear to fuel the Moroccan jihadis are domestic. Youths growing up in the poverty-stricken suburbs of Casablanca that produced all six of the recent suicide bombers say Salafi preachers have been active in the region for years, often lecturing in underground mosques that are outside the supervision of the government-authorized religious authorities. Poverty and hopelessness, they say, create a ready audience for the radical imams.
“Speaking as a young person, you graduate, you get your bachelor's degree, then you find the bitter reality of disappointment. No job offers,” said Abdel Rahim, a 26-year-old law student sitting in a cyber-café in Casablanca's poor Hay Farah neighbourhood. Mr. Rahim, who himself is a member of al-Adl wal-Ihsan, or Justice and Charity, a banned Islamist movement, said the Salafi preachers working in Hay Farah taught “that everybody who doesn't think like them is unfaithful.”
Like many of the young men and women sitting at the other computers, Mr. Rahim was surfing through a dense network of Islamist websites that call for the abolition of Morocco's pro-Western monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.
“The tragic events which struck the heart of Morocco these last days predict a much more serious crisis if the situation is not saved,” said the website Mr. Rahim was reading.
The page also featured pictures of a woman with a badly bruised face, identified as a Justice and Charity activist who had been beaten by Moroccan security services. Another source of anger is the regime's torture and repression of Islamists, a hangover from the brutal police state that Morocco's reformist King Mohammed VI inherited from his father in 1999 and has gradually been trying to modernize.
Many here say that if there is a global clash of civilizations, another clash exists within Morocco. The suburb that Mr. Rahim lives in feels a long way from the sandy beaches and sultry discos that mingle with the ancient walled cities and exotic souqs on Morocco's thriving tourist trail.
Close allies with the West, particularly the United States and France, the country is used as a training ground for U.S. soldiers en route to Iraq. It's also one of the few Arab League members that welcomes Israeli visitors.
“Morocco is a country of contrasts and contradictions. We could say the same for Algeria, or Lebanon, or Egypt,” said Belkacem Boutayeb, an expert on regional politics at the Moroccan Institute of International Relations, naming three other countries with Western-friendly governments and thriving Islamist opposition movements.
He said the governments of all four countries were in danger because of their alliance with an American government that has routinely ignored the advice of its Arab allies in pursuing the war in Iraq and unblinking support for the 40-year-old Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
“Thanks to our American friends, the world is building more and more terrorists,” he sighed.
Posted May 19, 2007, Globe and Mail
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