Word: moroccans
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...Tbaiti's primary mission, Moroccan officials believe, was to prepare a sequel to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole Yemen, that killed 17 Americans. Tbaiti's controller, sources tell TIME, was the same operative - an Al Qaeda commander known as Mullah Blal - who directed the Cole bombing in October 2000. The sources say that within the past month, Al Tbaiti and at least one of the other Saudi suspects traveled to the northern Moroccan coast to launch preparations for attacking a U.S. or British warship passing through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. Using the meticulous planning for the Cole operation...
...where an Al Qaeda commander instructed them to disperse to countries where they could form sleeper cells without arousing suspicions. With their native Saudi Arabia on high alert for returning terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks, Morocco was a natural choice for Al Tbaiti and Alissiri: Both had married Moroccan women. Al Tbaiti's young bride, as it turned out, had been killed in Tora Bora...
...Saudis, Moroccan sources tell TIME, were told to be ready for two missions, one to be carried out in Morocco, another in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis wasted little time in setting up their Moroccan cell. Al Tbaiti married another local girl, meaning that he and Alassiri could blend into Moroccan life by staying with in-laws in the teeming Rabat casbah rather than in hotels where they might have eventually attracted police attention. Frequenting mosques and masquerading as businessmen, the Saudis had Moroccan acquaintances provide phone cards and bank accounts for local communications and money transfers totaling thousands of dollars...
...Moroccan officials believe that it was when the Saudis initially received no word from their superiors that they decided on their own to prepare for attacks on American and Jewish targets inside the country. Moroccan sources say that while no specific targets are known, the Saudis were observed conducting surveillance that hinted at their intentions. Sources say that Moroccan officials feared that the terrorists had their sights on various U.S. diplomatic facilities, luxury hotels catering to Western tourists and synagogues serving the 4,000 remaining members of Morocco's 2,000-year-old Jewish community. Moroccan sources say that...
...Moroccan officials trace the discovery of the Rabat cell directly to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. Sources say that U.S. and British forces captured 17 Moroccan members of al Qaeda and sent them to Guantanamo. Under interrogation, sources tell TIME, some of the Moroccans fingered a Saudi they knew only as Zuher. They said that he had recruited many of them to join Al Qaeda and believed that he had headed back to Morocco. An even better clue came when at least one of the detainees recalled the family name of the Moroccan wife who had perished in Tora...