Five more arrests were made on Dec. 24 in relation to the murder of two Scandinavian women in the High Atlas mountains in Morocco—an attack that has been described by local authorities as a terrorist act.
The five arrests bring the total number of arrests from the incident to 18 members as authorities work to dismantle the extremist “cell.”
The arrests on Christmas Eve included the so-called “emir” who masterminded the group, the chief of Morocco’s Central Bureau for Judicial Investigation Abdelhak Khiam confirmed, reported AFP.
Four of the 18 arrests were of main suspects in the attack on the two Scandinavian tourists who were visiting the country on a camping trip.
Dane Louisa Vesterager Jespersen and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland found dead on Dec. 17 around 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) from the village of Imlil on the way to Toubkal—North Africa’s highest peak and a popular hiking destination.
Abdessamad Ejjoud, a 25-year-old street vendor living on the outer part of Marrakesh, has been identified as the alleged ringleader and had “formed a kind of cell that discussed how to carry out a terrorist act inside the kingdom,” Khiam said, according to AFP.
The three other suspects who had direct involvement in the killings were Abderrahim Khayali; a 33-year-old plumber, Rachid Afatti; a 33-year-old street vendor, and Younes Ouaziyad; a 27-year-old carpenter.
An investigator has said that a week before the murders, Ejjoud along with the other three main suspects were seen in a video pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. However, neither Norway nor Denmark appear to have been mentioned in the video, and the men had not said anything specific about what action they were planning to perform, according to the Norway police.
Khiam also had told AFP that the four main suspects had not had any contact with ISIS leaders “in conflict zones,” whether in Syria, Iraq, or Libya, and added that the alleged killers had “formed a kind of cell that discussed how to carry out a terrorist act inside the kingdom ... targeting the security services or foreign tourists.”
Two days before the murders, the men allegedly traveled to the Imlil region “because it is frequented by foreigners” and “targeted the two tourists in a deserted area,” Khiam said.
The murder that shocked the world lead to hundreds of Moroccans rallying in front of the Norwegian and Danish embassies in their capital Rabat on Dec. 22 in remembrance of the two slain Scandinavian tourists.
Morocco has generally been considered safe for tourists but has battled with Islamic extremism for years. More than a thousand Moroccans are believed to have joined ISIS.
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