Salafiyah Jihadiya- News Update.

A Moroccan, Muhsen Khayber, also known as Abdul Rahim, has been named by the government in Iraq for a deadly car bomb attack and as a top recruiter of foreign fighters, sending militants across the border from Syria and acting as a liaison with European extremists.

Muhsen Khayber is said to have moved to Syria from Morocco after allegedly being involved in coordinated suicide bombings in Casablanca on May 16, 2003, that killed thirty-two people.

The Iraqi government statement said Khayber was arrested in Syria in May 2004 and handed over to the Moroccans. There is some doubt as to the truth of the statement as Khayber is said to be still sending money to his two wives in the Moroccan city of Larache, where he was born in 1970. Khayber is reported to have became attracted to the strict Islamic Salafiyah Jihadiya during the 1991 Gulf War and made contact with the Moroccan cleric Mohammed El Fazazi who is reported to have called for jihad against the West. Moroccan intelligience accuse El Fazazi of inspiring the suicide bombers that carried out the Casablanca blasts. He is serving a 30-year sentence in Morocco.

According to some press reports a Moroccan government spokesman, Nabil Benabdallah, claimed he has never heard of Khayber or Abdul Rahim.

Other al-Qaida and Islamic extremists were attracted to El Fazazi's preachings, including Mohamed Atta, leader of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Jamal Zougam, the prime suspect in the 2004 train attacks that killed 191 people in Madrid.

It is claimed that Khayber was also influenced by the taped speeches of Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-Palestinian cleric once described by a Spanish judge as Osama bin Laden's "spiritual ambassador in Europe."

Following the 2001 attacks on the United States, Khayber established contacts with militant Moroccan immigrants in Spain. There's no evidence he had any part in the Madrid bombings.

In Syria, Khayber allegedly played a significant role in the Islamic extremist network, acting as a master recruiter and liaison with European militants.


TAGS:

Morocco, Fes, Jihad, Terrorism,