Morocco Foils ISIS-Linked Terror Plot, Arrests Four Suspects

The operation, carried out by the special forces elements of the DGST, in coordination with the commissioners and officers of the BCIJ, the members of the air unit and the judicial center of the Royal Gendarmerie, led to the arrest of four individuals, including three brothers, linked to the terrorist organization Daesh (ISIS). The defendants, aged 26, 29, 31 and 35, were carrying out their terrorist activities in the Had Soualem region, in the province of Berrechid, according to a statement from the BCIJ.

Accompanied by technicians specialized in the detection of explosives and sniffer dogs, the security services searched two houses located in the Al Omrane and Al Amal neighborhoods in the Al Ouahda district of Had Soualem, seizing various sizes of bladed weapons, bottles containing chemical liquids and powders, bags of chemical fertilizers, sulfur, charcoal powder, salts and other suspicious substances, as well as electrical wires, welding equipment and adhesive tapes. Objects that, according to the BCIJ statement, are suspected of being used to manufacture explosives. They were handed over to the scientific and technical police experts for analysis.

The investigation was opened after the DGST services intercepted a video in which the suspects pledged allegiance to the terrorist group Daesh and committed to carrying out imminent terrorist acts. The investigations and surveillance allowed to discover that the suspects had made, in a single day, purchases in four chemical product stores in the Had Soualem region. They notably obtained products used in the manufacture of explosives, which they then stored in the home of one of them, pending the execution of their plan.