Excerpt from document
(S/NF) The Moroccans are eager to share their assessment
of domestic and regional terrorist threats, including joint
efforts to shut down the foreign fighter pipeline. Your
meetings with the Interior Minister, the Foreign Minister,
and the Chief of Morocco's external intelligence service will
be good opportunities to shore up our strong bilateral
counterterrorism relationship.

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S E C R E T RABAT 000116

SIPDIS

SIPDIS
NOFORN

DEPARTMENT FOR S/CT DAILEY AND NEA - DAS GRAY

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2/6/18
TAGS: PTER, ASEC, PREL, PGOV, MO
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT OF S/CT AMB. DAILEY AND
DELEGATION

Classified by DCM Robert P. Jackson for reasons 1.4 (b) and
(d).

---------
Overview
---------

1. (S/NF) The Moroccans are eager to share their assessment
of domestic and regional terrorist threats, including joint
efforts to shut down the foreign fighter pipeline. Your
meetings with the Interior Minister, the Foreign Minister,
and the Chief of Morocco's external intelligence service will
be good opportunities to shore up our strong bilateral
counterterrorism relationship. We enjoy excellent
collaborative relationships with the Interior and Foreign
Ministries, and our information exchange and technical
cooperation with Morocco's intelligence service is first
rate.

2. (C) Morocco's political scene is stable but evolving.
Morocco is a country on the move and a good harvest this year
should return it to high GDP growth. The stock market and
much of the economy are booming, but large swaths of the
population are still left behind. King Mohammed VI has made
promotion of social development a cornerstone of his reign
and is constantly traveling across the country to inaugurate
new development projects. We assess public support for the
person of the King as strong, though there is general
dissatisfaction with the government's performance, mainly
fueled by unemployment, chronic deficits in the housing and
health care sectors, and a growing concern about corruption.

3. (C) Prime Minister Abbas El-Fassi's government, formed in
the fall after the September legislative elections, is built
on a minority coalition. Most observers believe it will not
last for the full five year mandate of parliament, and see a
growing role for Fouad Ali El Himma, an intimate of the King,
newly named as head of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee. Islamists, socially conservative but
loyal to the King, won the popular vote in the fall
elections, but lost the race for parliamentary seats and will
remain in an opposition role. We currently see no prospect
for a significant shift in Morocco's foreign and security
policies. Neither parliament nor the PM have much say in
these issues, which are managed by the Throne directly with
concerned ministries.

4. (C) In addition to your meetings with the Government of
Morocco (GOM), you will be able to discuss strategies for
enhancing CT cooperation at the regional level in your
meeting with the Secretary-General Benyahya of the Arab
Maghreb Union (AMU). Benyahya, a former Tunisian Foreign and
Defense Minister, is a capable diplomat respected across the
region. But the AMU remains hobbled by political disputes
among its five member states, especially the frosty relations
between Algeria and Morocco, fueled by (or manifested in) the
continuing Western Sahara dispute. By consensus, the Sahara
question is excluded from AMU deliberations but it remains,
just beneath the surface, a stubborn obstacle to closer
regional cooperation. Benyahya has nonetheless been able to
build a security dimension to the AMU process, sponsoring
several meetings of AMU interior ministers aimed at enhancing
technical cooperation and information exchange. We
understand U.S. policy is to enhance Maghreb unity through
the AMU, but the major obstacle, more even than the Western
Sahara is the poor state of Moroccan-Algerian relations
symbolized by the closed border. Morocco's highest foreign
policy priority by far is the Western Sahara issue, and you
may hear about the visit of UN negotiator Peter Van Walsum
whose visit overlaps yours.

--------------------------------
Morocco's Domestic Terror Threat
--------------------------------

5. (C) A relative lull since the 2003 Casablanca bombings,
which targeted Jewish and Western interests and killed 45
people, was shattered when a series of suicide bombing
attacks took place in Morocco in 2007. The spring 2007
violence again centered in the city of Casablanca, Morocco,s
commercial capital, but the last attack occurred in August in
the interior city of Meknes.

6. (C) Characteristics of the attacks support previous
analysis that Morocco,s greatest terrorist threat stems from
the existence of numerous small "grassroots" Salafi Jihadist
groups in Morocco willing to commit violent acts against the
state, foreigners, and innocent civilians. However, these
groups, at least for the time being, remain small,
disorganized, and without safe haven.

7. (C) The attacks in 2007, which appear to have been, at
best, poorly coordinated events, contrast sharply with
terrorist plots in 2006, which saw several much more
elaborate plans, thwarted by the vigilance of Moroccan
authorities. In the most prominent of these, Moroccan
authorities arrested 51 members of the so-called Ansar
al-Mahdi cell*five of whom were Moroccan soldiers*in early
August 2006, disrupting their plans to attack the U.S.
Embassy in Rabat and tourist sites, and to kidnap several
Moroccan ministers. (Fifty defendants in this case were
convicted in January 2008 and received sentences of 2 - 25
years.)

8. (C) Throughout 2007, the GOM continued to aggressively
target and dismantle terrorist cells within the Kingdom by
leveraging policing techniques, coordinating the security
services, and expanding regional CT partnerships. The GOM
disrupted numerous cells in 2007 dedicated to sending jihadi
fighters to Iraq, including one based in the northern
Moroccan city of Tetouan linked to the Algeria-based
al-Qa'ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

----------------
External Threats
----------------

9. (C) Morocco has several external terrorist threats
including AQIM, the Pakistan-based al-Qa'ida, and jihad
veterans returning from Iraq. The principle menace from AQIM
remains the knowledge transfer of AQIM operational
capabilities to Morocco,s committed, but relatively
inexperienced, Salafi Jihadist adherents. To date, however,
AQIM has not been able to facilitate a successful attack in
Morocco but credible reports warn us of "considerable
numbers" of Moroccans training with AQIM in northern Mali and
Algeria and returning to Morocco.

10. (SBU) The main threat posed by the Pakistan-based
al-Qa'ida network is its information operations, which could
have inspired the 2003 and 2007 bombings in Casablanca and
may inspire future attacks. Al-Qa'ida number two Ayman
al-Zawahiri implicitly called for attacks on the two Spanish
enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in 2006 and 2007.

------------------------
Returning Iraqi Fighters
------------------------

11. (SBU) The GOM is concerned about Moroccan veteran
jihadists eventually returning from Iraq to propagate
jihadist activity at home. While overall numbers of
Moroccans fighting in Iraq are difficult to estimate, some
press reporting puts the number at several hundred.

---------------------
Morocco's CT Approach
----------------------

12. (SBU) A key to the GOM CT strategy has been a
comprehensive approach which not only emphasizes neutralizing
existing terrorist threats through traditional law
enforcement and security measures, but also engages in
preventative measures to discourage terrorist recruitment
through political reform and policy measures and by taking
advantage of the Islamic "high ground" through the King, as
religious leader, and the religious establishment. As a
religious and political leader for all Moroccans, King
Mohamed VI has led this effort by unambiguously condemning
terrorism and those who espouse or conduct terrorism.

13. (SBU) In 2007, the GOM continued to implement internal
reforms aimed at ameliorating socio-economic factors that
create conditions conducive to extremism. The National
Initiative for Human Development, launched by King Mohamed VI
in 2005, is a $1.2 billion program designed to generate

employment, combat poverty, and improve infrastructure, with
a special focus on rural areas. The embassy is chipping in
with programs targeted at vulnerable youth and we have a
proposal for FY 09 funding to sponsor prison reform and
deradicalisation.

----------------
Counterextremism
----------------

14. (SBU) Morocco's Ministry of Religious Endowments and
Islamic Affairs (MOIA) also continues reforms launched in
2004 to counter extremist ideology and promote religious
moderation and tolerance. In 2006, 30 imams were dismissed
in favor of those preaching a government-sanctioned message.
MOIA also supervised revisions to the country's religious
curriculum, broke with the precedent by appointing 50 women
as spiritual guides at mosques, and installed a closed
circuit television network which broadcasts moderate
religious sermons to 2,000 mosques each day.

15. (SBU) The GOM also emphasized adherence to human rights
standards in the pursuit of terrorist suspects and increased
law enforcement and justice transparency as part of its CT
program. The GOM this year provided NGOs unprecedented
access to prisons and demonstrated unprecedented frankness in
presenting to the public candid assessments of the terrorism
threat.

------------
Legal Reform
------------

16. (SBU) Following the suicide bombings in Casablanca in May
2003, Morocco passed laws to broaden the definition of
terrorism, proposed heavy sentences for inciting terrorism,
and increased investigative authorities, powers against
suspected terrorists. In an effort to combat terrorist
financial transactions, the new laws also allowed for
freezing of suspect accounts, and permitted the prosecution
of terrorist finance related crimes.

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Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website;
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/rabat
*****************************************

Riley