Morocco Wants Closer Cooperation with Europol

Morocco has urged the Europol for closer cooperation to monitor radicalized youth in Europe, head of Morocco’s counterterrorism agency (BCIJ) Abdelhak Khiame said.

Morocco has established a strategy to protect its large diaspora in Europe from the threat of extremism, he said in an interview with Spanish news agency EFE, urging Europol to give Moroccan services access to its database.

Such access will help Moroccan security services better monitor radicalized youth in Europe, he said.

The interview was carried out on the commemoration of the Barcelona attacks perpetrated by Spanish youth of Moroccan origins.

For Khiame, one of the main lessons learnt of the Barcelona attacks is the need to reinforce the exchange of information between different intelligence services.

He said that cooperation with Spanish intelligence services is “excellent,” urging other European countries to follow suit.

In this regards, he deplored that French services did not contact Moroccan counterparts concerning the perpetrator of a recent terrorist attack, who was previously flagged by Moroccan services.

Moroccan and Spanish security services have conducted several joint operations to dismantle terrorist cells, the latest was busted last May with its members arrested in the Moroccan northern town of Fnideq and in Bilbao.