AL-QAEDA RELEASES PROPAGANDA VIDEO DIRECTED AT MOROCCO

Tue 08 August 2023:

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has released a propaganda video targeting Morocco, entitled “Oh, citizens of Morocco.” According to Spain-based news site Atalayar, citing the Sahel Intel portal, the 38-minute video includes audio of Abu Yasser Jazaery, the Algerian ideologue of AQIM “with a propaganda content clearly aimed at recruiting a target audience of young Muslims and with obvious warlike intentions.”

Al Qaeda en el Magreb Islámico publica un vídeo de 38:35 min titulado: Oh, ciudadanos de Marruecos, con audios de, Abu Yasser al-Jazaery, con un claro contenido de propaganda de reclutamiento dirigido a una audiencia objetivo musulmana, joven y con evidentes intenciones bélicas. pic.twitter.com/wKRaXOOc62

— Sahelintel (@Sahelintel1) August 7, 2023

Sahel Intel also noted that AQIM regularly makes announcements against the Algerian government, but this is the first time that it has been openly against Morocco. Two weeks ago, Moroccan authorities arrested 21 individuals suspected of having links with Al-Qaeda or Daesh. During the counter-terrorism operation, special forces seized knives, publications defending terrorism and instructions for making explosives.

AQIM is said to have emerged from the Algerian civil war of the early 90s, forming in 1998 as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), before pledging allegiance to Al-Qaeda in 2006, becoming AQIM in early 2007, marking the “first real transnational jihadist presence in the region,” although it has a particularly strong presence in Mali.

In an interview with France24 in March, AQIM emir Abu Obeida Youssef Al-Anabi described the Sahel region as the “epicentre” of jihad today and also praised the withdrawal of French troops from Mali the year before and in Burkina Faso in February of this year.