Word: moroccan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...have: religion. She is a murshida, a Muslim "guide" or preacher, and as such a rarity in the Islamic world, in which religious instruction is usually the preserve of men. The government-sponsored religious training that al Salfi and other female preachers have undergone is unique in Islam. But Moroccan officials say other countries, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have also expressed keen interest in the idea of using a woman's touch as an antidote to extremism...
...social club and the Belgian consulate. Since then, Morocco has been rocked by scattered acts of terrorism, and in February police arrested 38 people who were allegedly members of an extremist gang suspected of pulling off robberies in Europe in the mid-1990s to bankroll a plot to assassinate Moroccan ministers and police chiefs. "We also know that Moroccans are feeding into the pipeline of foreign fighters going to Iraq," says a Western diplomat in Rabat. A disproportionate number of them, he adds, end up as suicide bombers. Police say that since February they have arrested more than 70 suspected...
Jihadis challenge one of the pillars that have kept the Moroccan monarchy stable since independence in 1956: the idea that the King, as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, is a Commander of the Faithful - a temporal and spiritual ruler rolled into one. When Mohammed VI first came to power, this exalted title jarred with his public image as a rather shy leader less enthused about statecraft than about computer games and the water sports that earned him the nickname His MaJetski. His relaxed behavior in the first years of his reign made him an easy target for jihadi...
Mohammed VI predicted that the terrorist attacks in Casablanca would be the last to jolt the country. But that forecast proved overly optimistic, despite the jailing of more than 500 suspected Islamists. Moreover, says Hakim El Rissai, a senior researcher at the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, the police crackdown has only fueled resentment against the regime: "The police here aren't very methodical. They arrest 200 people to catch one terrorist." This repression, adds El Rissai, "is turning the jihadis into martyrs...
...Hannibal, 32, and his pregnant wife Aline were arrested on July 15 after the staff of a five-star hotel notified the police that the couple was beating two servants who were part of their entourage. Questioned by the police, a Tunisian woman and a Moroccan man confirmed that the Gaddafis had repeatedly struck them, causing visible bruises and other bodily injuries. Two days later, the Gaddafis were released on $500,000 bail and, pending further investigation by the Geneva prosecutors, returned to Libya. "They deny all the charges against them," the couple's Geneva attorney, Alain Berger, told TIME...