Morocco's War on Terrorism The Case for Security Cooperation Today
ITEAS (International Research Group for Transregional and Emerging Area Studies) Nakagawa, Rezrazi & Matsumoto
251pp • 132x210mm
ISBN: 978-1-908531-69-8
Price: £14.95
Publication: July 2016
A remarkable report on terrorism today and its implications for the wider world.
This timely book documents Morocco’s approach in facing terrorism threats - something the security services have worked on with with resolution and determination. This book also reveals just how effective this experience has proven to be in confronting the terrorist phenomenon. Importantly it also points out the vital importance of international cooperation to pre-empt future events like the resent attacks in Paris and Brussels.
About the Authors
ITEAS (International Research Group for Transregional and Emerging Area Studies) was launched in 1994 with support from the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Tokyo. Mobilising scholars, civil society and experts interested in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, ITEAS plays an important role in the future prosperity of these areas, ensuring that these emerging areas assume their rightful place in the knowledge base of all.
Dr. El Mostafa Rezrazi, ITEAS,Vice-President Distinguished Professor at Sapporo Gakuin. Sapporo Lecturer, Mohammed V University, Rabat
Dr, Kei Nakagawa, ITAES, PresidentProfessor at Hagoromo University for International Studies. OsakaVisiting Professor at Meiji University,Tokyo
Dr. Shoji Matsumoto, ITEAS, Head of Research Program Professor of Comparative and International Law Professor at Sapporo Gakuin. Sapporo.
Contents Introduction § Preface Chapter 1 - Before the 16th May, 2003 attacks Chapter 2 - The Beginning: The Road From Afghanistan Chapter 3 - The Foiling of Dormant and Active Cells Chapter 4 - A Chronology of the Dismantling of Terrorist Cells Chapter - 5 Morocco’s Pivotal Role in Preventing Terrorism
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During the last two decades, terrorism has been spreading far and wide across the world. Terrorist attacks that hit New York, London, Madrid, Casablanca, Paris, Istanbul, and other capitals not only inflicted thousands of casualties and significant infrastructure damage, but noticeably marked the inauguration of a new generation of terror in which counter-terrorism has become one of the highest priorities for international institutions and national governments. So, even prior to the rise of ISIL (The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) the number of terrorist attacks around the world in 2013 rose to more than 8,500, and 17,891 people lost their lives in 2013 as a result of these terrorist attacks. More than a third, 6,378 occurred in Iraq. Afghanistan suffered the second-most deaths, followed by Pakistan.
Since the announcement of its caliphate in June 2014, ISIL has carried out over 71 terrorist attacks in 22 countries, killing at least 1,200 people and injuring more than 1,900 others. This does not include bloody acts committed by the organization in the battlefields in Syria and Iraq. At the European level, since the events of Paris, 13th November 2015, two issues have emerged as key: the importance of international cooperation in the area of security and counter-terrorism, and matter of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq.
For the first point, it should be stated that, although the European Commission has been working on an Internal Security Strategy since 2010, a dominant conviction has persisted that the fight against terrorism is principally a national and sovereign matter. In the first EU security road map, the assistance which the European Union gave to its member states was limited to creating a legal environment and framework for cooperation, and to developing common capabilities and systems such as the Schengen Information System (SIS) or the Civil Protection Mechanism, the Radicalization Awareness Network, ATLAS (network of the rapid intervention forces), and Airpol (the network of airport police).
When it came, the Paris attack on the 13th of November 2015 exposed all these efforts to criticism, and demonstrated that coordination and security cooperation within the Schengen area were, in reality, ineffective. For this reason, the European Commission immediately stressed the importance of presenting, before the end of 2015, an ambitious set of measures aimed at securing the EU’s borders, managing migration more effectively, and improving the internal security of the European Union, while safeguarding the principle of free movement of the individual.
