Moroccan police have arrested an alleged member of a terrorist group believed linked to the 2003 attacks in Casablanca.
According to Abderrahman Achour, the interior ministry spokesman, Saad Houssaini was arrested on Thursday in Casablanca for his alleged role in the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group known by its French acronym GICM which has been implicated in the Madrid and Casablanca attacks. Houssaini is suspected by Moroccan authorities of having made the explosives used in the Casablanca bombings. However reports on Al Jazeera say that although Houssaini has been linked to the group thought to be behind the Casablanca attacks, it is not known if he was personally involved in the bombings.
Experts say that immediately after the Casablanca attacks, Houssaini fled to Iraq, with the help of a terrorist cell in Germany supporting Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi who went on to become chief of al-Qaeda in Iraq before he was killed by US forces in June 2006.
Houssaini was born in Meknes and studied chemistry before traveling to Afghanistan, where he allegedly helped found the GICM and taught bomb-making in Kabul in 2000.
Spain's National Court and Spanish police said today that Houssaini is not wanted in the Madrid attacks and that his name has come up in the Spanish investigation but only in connection to the Casablanca bombings.
Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
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