Word: moroccans
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...Germans didn't have enough evidence to arrest him, and when he arranged to travel to Morocco, officials gave him a temporary passport and let him go. Zammar left on Oct. 27--and vanished. The Germans had no idea where he was until last week, when they learned that Moroccan officials had arrested him and deported him to Syria. "I heard about it first by reading the newspaper," says an irked German official...
...proof came two weeks ago, when Moroccan police in Casablanca announced the arrest of three Saudis--Zuher al-Tbaiti, Abdullah al-Ghamdi and Hilal Alissiri--on suspicion of plotting an attack on an American or British warship in the Strait of Gibraltar. (The group had been planning to buy a Zodiac motorized skiff, which could have been used for an attack like the one on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.) Moroccan officials tell TIME that they started tailing the group after a tip from the U.S., which had been questioning Moroccan al-Qaeda detainees in Cuba. The detainees told...
...Armed with this intelligence, Moroccan agents began combing identity rolls, immigration records and other sources in a manhunt for Zuher. The breakthrough came when they discovered the family of Zuher's late wife, who provided his real name and gave the description for a composite sketch that police circulated throughout the country. Within three days, sources say, an informant had positively sighted Al Tbaiti. Intensive surveillance of his movements eventually led police to his two accomplices. In addition, TIME has learned, authorities arrested three Moroccan women as possible accomplices: Tbaiti's wife Bahija Haidour, his sister-in-law Houria Haidour...
...Though pleased with the breakthrough, the affair is troubling for Moroccans. Terrorism and religious extremism is rare in the Kingdom, the only notable violence in recent years coming in an isolated attack on a Marrakech hotel by French Muslim militants of Algerian origin that killed two Spanish tourists in 1994. But given the ease with which the al Qaeda operatives slipped into the country, officials fear that other cells may be operating as well. Moreover, they are concerned that al Qaeda may be receiving assistance from local radicals who are sympathetic to but not part of Bin Laden's network...
...Hassan II. Discovering the al Qaeda connection in Morocco was a shock, adding another problem after massive street protests in support of the Palestinians, fresh political tensions with Algeria over the future of the disputed Western Sahara and unemployment hitting 25 percent in some parts of the country. Nonetheless, Moroccan officials say, the King is determined to keep his promise to support the U.S. after the Sept. 11 attacks. By standing up to al Qaeda, he wants to ensure that Morocco remains a favored destination for tourists - and not terrorists...