The North Africa Post
Morocco, France, Spain and Belgium have just set up a joint security cell, tasked with foiling any terrorist attacks during the year’s end holiday season.
According to local daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, which is reporting the news this Monday, the joint security cell is already operational and works around the clock.
The daily, quoting security sources, said the cell is working at the highest level of coordination between the four countries’ security and intelligence services, both domestic and foreign.
The cell focuses on updating databases and exchanging information on terrorists and extremists who may pose a threat during the holiday season.
The setting up of the cell came following the publishing of an Interpol security report, warning of possible terrorist attacks by elements belonging to the terrorist group Daesh. These terrorists are reportedly preparing to carry out attacks in several European countries.
The alert launched by Interpol coincides with a travel warning that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) addressed to Americans wishing to travel to Europe for the holiday season, the daily stated. The US State Department also issued a travel warning advising US citizens not to travel to Europe at year’s end, because of the serious terrorist threats on several European countries.
According to Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, last week attack in Strasbourg, perpetrated by a French national of Algerian origin, has probably incited French security services to strengthen their cooperation with Morocco in the fight against terrorism. The Strasbourg attempt raises again questions about the existence of loopholes in the French anti-terrorism system that failed to anticipate the attack, the newspaper quoted security sources as saying.
The paper recalled that French, Belgian and Spanish security services rely, largely, on the preventive information provided by the Moroccan counter-terrorism services as these services have, on several occasions, played a strategic role in helping these countries thwart terrorist attacks.
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