Morocco busts all-female ‘IS cell’

Rabat / AFP

Moroccan police have arrested 10 women who had allegedly pledged allegiance to the IS extremist group and planned to carry out suicide bombings across the country,
authorities said on Monday.
The all-female cell had “tried to obtain the chemicals used to make explosive belts” and were planning to attack “vital installations”, the interior ministry said.
The women had built “close relationships with several Moroccan terrorists also affiliated with IS (and) based on the Syrian-Iraqi border,” it said.
The cell was recruiting and training women in several parts of the country including the tourist hotspot of Tangiers and towns close to the capital Rabat, the ministry said.
Rabat says more than 150 “terrorist cells” have been uncovered since 2002, including dozens in the past three years with ties to extremists in Iraq and Syria.
A study by the US-based Soufan Group said last December that at least 1,200 Moroccans had travelled abroad to fight alongside IS in the previous 18 months.
But a 2003 attack in the economic capital Casablanca left 45 dead, while a 2011 attack at a tourist site in Marrakesh killed 17 people.