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| Young militant islam: Imane Laghriss was jailed in 2003 for planning a suicide mission in Morocco. Marc Perelman |
A new, younger jihadi threat emerges
Terrorism experts say radical groups are targeting teenagers as young as 14.
from the December 28, 2007 edition
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Ned Moran, the deputy director of Total Intelligence Solutions, a security consulting firm in Virginia, says he believes the actual number of "real, serious" Al Qaeda-inspired sites numbers in the hundreds. By "serious," he means those including four elements: propaganda, ideological debates, strategic discussions, and tactical advice.
"Bin Laden doesn't need to send recruiters to North Africa, they just come to him virtually," says Abdallah Rami, who is finishing a dissertation at Hassan II University in Casablanca on the role of the Internet in the "salafist" movement, as the radical brand of Islamist militancy is known.
For Imane Laghriss, the connection to the salafist movement was virtual at first, through her heroes discovered on television
such as Mr. bin Laden after 9/11 and Mohammed el-Dura, a Palestinian boy killed in front of TV cameras during a skirmish between
Israelis and Palestinians in 2000. Images of his death sparked controversy as they became linked to the Palestinian cause.
In many respects, she is a normal young woman who speaks about building a family and giggles at the mention of a potential
husband.
After their birth to a prostitute mother and an unknown father in 1989, Imane and Sanae were handed to their grandparents, with whom they lived until age 5. They were then separated and lived with a variety of family members. They eventually found a second family in the salafist movement.
When they reunited with their mother in Rabat, the two began hanging out with local Islamists. Imane began wearing the veil and they eventually found a spiritual guide in a militant named Abdelkader Labsir. He encouraged them to follow the example of "martyrs" who have killed themselves in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
After a dozen young men detonated themselves in Casablanca in May 2003, killing 45 people, the twins concocted a plan to bomb a liquor store, which they abandoned in favor of the plot to blow themselves up inside the parliament. But after Imane wrote to a local imam informing him about their plans, he immediately alerted the police, who arrested them in August 2003.
They were indicted of terrorist conspiracy and of plotting against the royal family. At their trial, they proudly proclaimed their intentions. They went on to write a pamphlet against the king, for which they received an additional 2-1/2-year prison term that was reduced to one year in appeal.
They eventually pledged to forgo violence and asked for a pardon, which King Mohammed VI granted in April 2005. When they were release from jail, Assia el Ouadie, a veteran human rights activist, placed them in a juvenile center in the suburbs of Casablanca "because [she] feared they could again become the prey of radical circles," she explained.
Last year, an association helping imprisoned youth found work for them at a bus factory. All went well for two months until Sanae fled the center for three weeks. They lost their jobs, but Imane eventually convinced her boss to take her back.
A couple of social workers are trying, largely on their own, to steer the twins toward a more peaceful existence. One of them, Chazira Amor, explained that the sisters had received no psychological support because Morocco has no system in place to assist young drifters and prevent them from falling prey to radical networks.
Mr. Zerouali, the interior minister senior official, stressed that the government is building some 200,000 housing units a year to eliminate the slums from which most young jihadis hail.
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