The escape in 2003 of Mohammed Mentala, alias Warda, came to an end on April 10 in the notorious el-Fida quarter in Casablanca. Some time after dawn, before Mentala could trigger off his explosive belt, an agent from the Moroccan police shot and killed him.

More bombs in Casablanca. Instead, an accomplice managed to blow himself up who, according to Moroccan Intelligence sources from al-Jazeera, hid with Mentala in an apartment along with a third man who managed to escape. Mentala was viewed as one of the minds behind the bombings of 16 May 2003 which, along with the simultaneous attack of 13 suicide bombers, caused the death of 45 people in Casablanca. Moroccan secret services, who have stolen photographs taken at the site of the raid, maintain that the three men belong to a larger group of around 15 men, who are planning a series of attacks in which Western ships in the Casablanca port or tourist buildings in Agadir and Marrakech would be the target. According to Moroccan authorities, all components of the group move around with ready-to-use explosive belts so that they are not captured alive, and they belong to a group of Salafist fundamentalists linked to al-Qaeda.

Yesterday’s incident comes a month after the death of Abdelfatah Raydi, the man who blew up an Internet café in Casablanca on 11 March after a dispute with the manager, wounding four people. According to rumours from the Casablanca police, still unconfirmed officially, Mentala’s accomplice who blew himself up during a Moroccan police raid could be Ayoub Raydi, Abdelfatah’s brother.

Thus a link would unite the two bombings and Moroccan armed forces have been reacting for months, in an attempt to eliminate the Jihadist network across the country.

A tight network. On 10 March, one day before the Internet café explosion, 44-year old chemist Saad Houssaini was arrested. He is believed to be the military leader of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (MICG), a Salafist group which the Moroccan government believes is involved in both the Casablanca bombings of 2003 and also those in Madrid in 2004 which caused the death of 191 people. Above all he is believed to be linked to al-Qaeda. The same accusation is given to the 31 people arrested after the death of Abdelfatah Raydi in Casablanca. And again, in October 2006, to the 56 people affiliated to Ansar al-Mahdi, a Shiite cell far from al-Qaeda in religious motives, but which according to Moroccan secret services have, for the time being, put aside religious differences to fight together against the Sunnis.

It’s a link which would have been confirmed by the entry of the two groups to the al-Qaeda Group in Maghreb, a name to which the Algerian Group for Preaching and Combat and the Salafist group in Tunisia would also have held close. A transnational alliance, settled by the turnover of the Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian governments, and seen as influential fundamentalists towards American politics, and not just in this area alone.

It’s not a coincidence that, almost simultaneously with the captures by the Moroccan police, the Algerian government launched Operation Amizour on 26 March, the largest anti-terrorist initiative since the start of the year. Helicopters and armoured vehicles along with a thousand men from the Algerian Army launched an imposing manhunt and, on 8 April, nine Algerian soldiers and at least six Islamic militants died in a shooting in Ain Defla, 160 km west of Algiers. According to sources from the independent Algerian press there are at least 20 victims to date, from an operation which is still on going. Just like the military action conducted on a large scale between the end of December and the start of January by Tunisian Special Forces.

A joint operation by the governments of Algiers, Rabat and Tunis would almost seem to help, settled by the uprooting of the al-Qaeda group in the Maghreb.

Terrorism and Politics. However, the situation seems more complex, and concerns relationships of current governments with standard Islamism. Of significance here is a survey carried out by an American studies centre, in which the current most voted-for movement in Morocco would be the Justice and Development Party (PJD), accredited by 49% of participants. Time is precious, given that voting begins for legislative elections in September, for the second time since the accession of Mohammed VI to the Moroccan throne in 1999. PJD is a moderate party, in line with the party of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, which separated from the Justice and Charity movement founded by Sheik Abdesslam Yassine in 2003, who is close to the position of Muslim brotherhood. The separation, blessed by the King of Morocco and by the United States, was reached on the basis of acceptance of the axiom God-Nation-Family, which also makes the King of Morocco the highest religious authority in the country, as well as making Yassine the main opposition to Mudawana, the Family Code Reform of 2004. PJD is therefore more moderate than Yassine’s movement, but this does not change the fact that the Islamists are the most popular party in Morocco, as is already the case in Egypt and in Palestine. The same thing happened in Algeria where Islamic parties have been forbidden since the civil war of the 90s. Yet Algerian President Bouteflika has attempted a policy of national reconciliation, open to anyone who chooses the parliamentary way of the political fight, except for the Islamic el-Islah party, which risks not being allowed to enter in the local elections next May. The concept is clear: in order to continue doing business with the European Union and the United States, a priority of Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian governments, a strong signal needs to be given to highlight which side of the line they place themselves in the “global war on terrorism”. This is also useful for maintaining power, given that Islamic parties are at the top of all the surveys.