Sunday, November 20, 2005

Sebta and Melilia





THE PORT OF SEBTA


Back in June 2003 the Arab Parliamentary Union, holding its 43rd session in Beirut, backed Morocco's claim to Sebta and Melilia

The Arab Parliamentary Union's council, raised the issue of Morocco's occupied cities of Sebta and Melilia, and stressed that it backs Morocco's standpoint concerning the two northern cities, reiterating its utter support to the kingdom's efforts to get back the two cities.

In this connection, the council urged the Spanish government to conduct direct negotiations with Morocco to address the problem peacefully.

I did a search for further developments but could find very little except for a few postings in blogs that called for the areas to be returned.

The areas have also been in the news over the years, including having been used by terrorists according to a report I found from back in 2003.

During Operation Enduring Freedom, the US led coalition forces captured several Taliban fighters in Afghanistan including 17 Moroccans. During their interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, it was revealed that a Saudi recruiter working for Osama bin Laden was located in Morocco, and had established a three-man Al Qaeda cell of Saudi nationals. The Moroccan wives of two of the men were also involved. The cell had plans to launch suicide bomb attacks on American warships transiting through the Gibraltar Strait and on the British naval repair and logistics facility at Gibraltar, some 19 kilometres off the northern city of Tangier at the mouth of the Mediterranean. Their plan was to reenact the USS Cole incident; allegedly, they had been preparing to pack inflatable rubber speedboats with explosives and crash them against naval assets. The women were allegedly to act as couriers for these operations.

Moroccan police arrested the three Saudi nationals who were planning suicide operations against American and British warships in the strait of Gibraltar. The three men, between the ages of 25 and 35 claimed to belong to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network. Reportedly, the suspects said that they planned to sail an inflatable dinghy loaded with explosives from Sebta and Melilia into the Strait to blow up warships on patrol.

Check Foulla's blog for her comments and a map showing the location of the two occupied areas.


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