Moroccan authorities have arrested more than a dozen Islamic State operatives, disrupting an attempt by extremists based in the Sahel to sow terror in the North African kingdom.
The arrests in February came after raids on nine Islamic State group (IS) cell locations across the country, including in major cities such as Casablanca and Fez. Security authorities confiscated materials needed to make remotely controlled bombs along with knives, rifles and handguns with their serial numbers removed.
The arrests were the latest in a string of anti-IS operations in Morocco. Between January 2023 and February 2024, for example, Moroccan authorities broke up multiple IS cells. Authorities captured individuals planning to or attempting to travel to IS’s Sahelian center of activity, known as Wilayat Sahel, at the junction of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
“Morocco remains a major target in the agenda of all terrorist organizations operating in the Sahel,” Habboub Cherkaoui, the head of Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations, said at a news conference announcing the most recent arrests. Experts say Morocco’s success against terrorists make it a role model for African countries.
“For its part, Morocco is working with regional partners to counter violent extremism at the political, religious, economic and security levels,” Mohamed Salah Tamek, delegate-general of Morocco’s Penitentiary and Reintegration Administration, said during a presentation at the Washington Institute.
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI supports joint efforts to combat radicalization, and officials from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Niger and Tunisia have said they are willing to train imams in Morocco in deradicalization methods.
Terrorism in the Sahel has expanded relentlessly in recent years following military coups in all three Sahelian countries. In launching their coups between 2021 and 2023, the juntas announced that they would do what the democratic government they overthrew could not: rein in the terrorists. Instead, groups including IS’s Sahel province have expanded their operations dramatically, making the region the world’s leader for terrorist activity.
Lately, IS has worked to consolidate power within the territory it controls, demanding zakat-style taxes from merchants and extorting residents to fund its operations. From its base in the Sahel, IS is also attempting to spread its brand of terrorism elsewhere on the continent.
“The minimal state and weak military presence, as well as the historically marginalized populations, weaken resistance and provide the group with recruits in this area where IS Sahel has been gaining influence and ingratiating themselves with local communities for nearly a decade,” analysts with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data wrote in a recent report.
From its base in the landlocked Sahelian countries, IS has tried unsuccessfully to expand its operations to coastal nations to the south as a way of securing uninterrupted supply lines. So far, coastal nations — Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo — have held IS and other terror groups at bay. As a result, IS-Sahel has turned more of its attention to Morocco as a primary target for expanding its influence. In recent years, IS affiliates in Africa have recruited more than 130 Moroccan fighters.
Morocco has dismantled more than 180 terrorist cells since 2002, according to government figures released in 2024. Just since 2015, Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations has dismantled dozens of militant cells and arrested more than 1,000 suspected terrorists, according to Cherkaoui.
The union of terrorist groups and criminal networks is a real threat to Morocco, Cherkaoui added.
“The African branches of IS tend to internationalize their activities,” he added.