Morocco arrests seven ISIS-linked extremist suspects

Moroccan authorities said on Tuesday they had arrested seven suspected extremists with links to ISIS.

An initial group of six suspects, aged between 22 and 28, were “supporters” of ISIS and suspected of planning “terrorist acts,” the central bureau of investigations said in a statement.

They were arrested in the coastal town of Sale, near Rabat, in a raid led by the bureau’s anti-terrorism squad.

Electronic devices, bladed weapons, and “extremist” documents were found during the raid, it said.

Investigators later said a seventh person had been arrested in the Western Sahara town of Dakhla on suspicion of links with the Sale detainees.

Morocco has been spared large-scale extremist attacks since a 2011 bombing in Marrakesh’s famed Jamaa El Fna Square that killed 17 people, mainly European tourists.

But authorities regularly announce they have dismantled ISIS cells.

Suspected extremists are to go on trial in Sale next week for the murder of two Scandinavian women in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains last December.