African securityMorocco says it experienced no acts of terrorism in 2014
The Moroccan government says that although the Maghreb region as a whole, including Mali, experienced more than 280 terrorist operations in 2014, Morocco is the only country where no single terrorist operation took place. The government says this was the result of Morocco’s anti-terrorism strategy.
Mustafa El-Khalfi, a spokesman for the Moroccan government, said last Thursday that Morocco is the only country in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region not to have experienced any acts of terrorism in 2014. El-Khalfi said this was the result of Morocco’s anti-terrorism strategy.
Speaking at a press conference in the capital Rabat, El-Khalfi said that the Moroccan government was aware of the new dimensions of terrorism, which has taken on new forms to allow it to expand and spread. “Morocco has been distinguished from a number of countries with its proactive ability and communication policy that work to integrate and involve the public in the efforts of the fight against terrorism,” the Middle East Monitor quotes him to say.
El-Khalfi also said that the government’s was actively propagating a moderate religious policy, and noted that Morocco is one of the few countries in MENA to have adapted its legal system to the new realities criminalizing joining terrorist organizations outside the country.
Referring to the recent attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia, in which twenty-three people were killed and forty-seven wounded, and other terrorism incidents across the region, El-Khalfi spoke about “The policy that Morocco’s various institutions have adopted in this respect has had positive results.”
According to statistics presented by El-Khalfi, the Maghreb region as a whole, including Mali, experienced more than 280 terrorist operations in 2014. Morocco is the only country where no single terrorist operation took place.
“Morocco is working within an international cooperation system based on the exchange of information and coordination in order to face this phenomenon,” he said. Terrorism, he added, is no longer just related to the southern Mediterranean countries, but it is a transnational phenomenon that targets security and stability.
