Terror cell dismantled in Nador & Melilla thanks to security cooperation between Rabat & Madrid

Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), equivalent of U.S. FBI, announced on Tuesday the dismantling, in cooperation with Spanish security services, of a terrorist cell operating in Nador and Melilla.

Two men, aged 34 and 39, were nabbed in the Moroccan Northeastern city of Nador and nine others were captured in Spanish enclave Melilla in a simultaneous operation carried out by Moroccan and Spanish law enforcement agents.

The members of the busted cell were promoting extremist ideology on social media networks with the aim of recruiting vulnerable people for their obscurantist terror projects.

Mobile phones, SIM cards, a computer and digital material were found by the police while searching their premises. According to preliminary investigation, the emir of the terrorist cell had links with the jihadist network dismantled in December 2019 in the suburbs of Madrid and Nador.

Last week, Moroccan authorities arrested a member of ISIS terror organization in Casablanca in cooperation with U.S. intelligence services.

These arrests, which disrupt major terror plots, show the importance of cooperation ties existing between Moroccan security services and their American and European partners.