La Policía marroquí desmantela un comando yihadista asociado a Daesh que preparaba atentados inminentes

On Thursday the Moroccan police dismantled a Jihadist commando associated with Daesh, consisting of five alleged suicide bombers who were planning imminent attacks in the Maghreb country, according to the head of Morocco's anti-terrorism department. The members of the cell were arrested in various operations that took place simultaneously in four cities in the country: Sjirat, Temara (located south of Rabat), Tiflet (60 km from Rabat) and Tangiers. 

Two of those arrested resisted during the police intervention in Tiflet and Temara, according to the Efe news agency. The police had to resort to warning shots and sound and smoke bombs to immobilise them. In the operation in Tiflet, one of the officers was wounded with a knife in his wrist. During the operation, the police found three explosive belts, three waistcoats, chemicals, two stun guns, a large quantity of knives, electronic equipment and three kilos of ammonium nitrate. 

A police source assured Efe that the members of this cell were between 29 and 43 years old and had multiple criminal records for violent crimes. The same source stressed the dangerous and complex nature of this command, which had explosive belts and waistcoats in an advanced state of manufacture, and was ready to commit suicide attacks in Moroccan territory. The last terrorist attack suffered by Morocco took place in December 2018, when a Jihadist commander killed and decapitated two Scandinavian tourists in the Atlas mountains. The perpetrators were arrested days later, tried and sentenced, three of them to death.