VZCZCXYZ0009
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHRB #0746/01 2241630
ZNR UUUUU ZZH (CCY ADXC4ECC7 MSI9403-623)
O 111630Z AUG 08
FM AMEMBASSY RABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8981
INFO RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0121
RUEHTC/AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE 0882
RUEHCL/AMCONSUL CASABLANCA 4266

UNCLAS RABAT 000746 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR H, NEA/RA AND NEA/MAG 
 
C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (CAPTION ADDED) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OREP PTER ASEC PREL PGOV MO
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR CODEL THOMPSON 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Representative Thompson, we are looking forward to 
your and your delegation's visit to Morocco.  The Moroccans 
are eager to share their assessment of domestic and regional 
terrorist threats and to discuss border security issues. 
Your meetings with Moroccan officials will afford good 
opportunities to shore up our strong bilateral 
counterterrorism relationship. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
Moroccan Government, Politics, and Economics 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Governance:  Morocco's political scene is stable 
but evolving.  King Mohammed VI rules as well as reigns. 
Morocco's Constitution and reality ascribe to the Palace the 
balance of political power.  The King has made significant 
political reforms, including relative freedom of expression, 
advances on human rights, and enhanced legal protections for 
women, particularly through bold revisions to the family law 
code in 2004, which are controversial with conservative 
Islamists.  Partly as a result of this reform record, public 
support for the King and his reform agenda is generally solid. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Parliament and Political Reform:  The September 
2007 legislative elections were certified as free and 
transparent by a team of international monitors (funded by 
the USG).  In the elections, the Islamists performed below 
expectations but led the opposition as the second largest 
bloc in parliament.  The elections were marred by a record 
low turnout, broadly seen as a reflection of low public 
confidence in the Parliament and political parties.  To 
address this, for the past few years, the USG has been 
funding capacity-building programs for the Parliament and 
political parties. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Current Government:  Prime Minister Abbas El 
Fassi's government, formed in the Fall after the September 
legislative elections, is built on a minority coalition. 
Most observers believe it will not last for the full 
five-year mandate of Parliament, and see a growing role for 
Fouad Ali El Himma, an intimate of the King, head of the 
Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and 
catalyst behind a new political bloc calling itself the 
Movement of All Democrats (MTD).  Islamists, socially 
conservative but loyal to the King, won the popular vote in 
the fall elections, but lost the race for parliamentary seats 
and will remain in an opposition role.  We currently see no 
prospect for a significant shift in Morocco's foreign and 
security policies.  Neither Parliament nor the Prime Minister 
has much say in these issues, which are managed by the Throne 
directly with concerned ministries. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Economics and Trade:  The economy is relatively 
robust with growing foreign investment and remittances, 
increasing tourism and a booming stock market, marred by 
increasing disparities in wealth.  Since implementation of 
our Free Trade Agreement on January 1, 2006, bilateral 
commerce has more than doubled.  Moroccan exports to the U.S. 
have increased 38 percent, and U.S. exports to Morocco have 
increased 155 percent.  However, Morocco still looks 
economically to Europe first.  Agriculture remains the sector 
that determines whether GDP rises or falls.  In 2007, drought 
and a small crop limited economic growth to only 2.3 percent, 
but better, if still below average rain and crops this year 
should revive growth.  Rising food prices have quickly become 
a principal domestic issue for Morocco, sparking sporadic 
protests.  The Government will continue to subsidize basic 
goods, remembering the food price riots of the 80's and 90's 
that threatened the stability of the nation. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) U.S. Assistance:  We are focusing our assistance to 
Morocco on four priorities:  counterterrorism, economic 
growth, democracy and governance, and supporting quality 
education.  One of our many tools will be the Millennium 
Challenge Account Compact with Morocco wherein USD 697.5 
million will be provided over the next five years to support 
economic growth and reduce poverty. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Morocco's Domestic Terror Threat 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (U) A relative lull since the 2003 Casablanca bombings, 
which targeted Jewish and Western interests and killed 45 
people, was shattered when a series of suicide bombing 
attacks took place in Morocco in 2007.  The spring 2007 
violence again centered in the city of Casablanca, Morocco's 
commercial capital, but the last attack occurred in August 
2007 in the interior city of Meknes. 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Characteristics of the attacks support previous 
analysis that Morocco's greatest terrorist threat stems from 
the existence of numerous small "grassroots" Salafi Jihadist 
groups in Morocco willing to commit violent acts against the 
state, foreigners, and innocent civilians. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The attacks in 2007, which appear to have been, at 
best, poorly coordinated events, contrast sharply with more 
elaborate plots in 2006 that were thwarted by the vigilance 
of Moroccan authorities.  In the most prominent of these, 
Moroccan authorities arrested 51 members of the so-called 
Ansar al-Mahdi cell, five of whom were Moroccan soldiers, in 
early August 2006.  (Fifty defendants in this case were 
convicted in January 2008 and received sentences of 2 - 25 
years.) 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Throughout 2007 and 2008, the Government of 
Morocco (GOM) continued to dismantle terrorist cells within 
the Kingdom. 
 
---------------- 
External Threats 
---------------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Morocco has several external terrorist threats 
including AQIM, Pakistan-based al-Qa'ida, and jihad veterans 
returning from Iraq.  Al-Qa'ida number two Ayman al-Zawahiri 
implicitly called for attacks on the two Spanish enclaves of 
Ceuta and Melilla in 2006 and 2007. 
 
------------------------ 
Returning Iraqi Fighters 
------------------------ 
 
¶12.  (SBU) The GOM is concerned about Moroccan veteran 
jihadists eventually returning from Iraq to propagate 
jihadist activity at home.  While overall numbers of 
Moroccans fighting in Iraq are difficult to estimate, some 
press reporting puts the number at several hundred. 
 
--------------------- 
Morocco's CT Approach 
--------------------- 
 
¶13.  (SBU) A key to the GOM's counterterrorism (CT) strategy 
has been a comprehensive approach which not only emphasizes 
neutralizing existing terrorist threats through traditional 
law enforcement and security measures, but also engages in 
preventative measures to discourage terrorist recruitment 
through political reform and policy measures and by taking 
advantage of the Islamic "high ground" through the King, as 
religious leader, and the religious establishment.  As a 
religious and political leader for all Moroccans, King 
Mohammed VI has led this effort by unambiguously condemning 
terrorism and those who espouse or conduct terrorism. 
 
¶14.  (SBU) In 2008, the GOM continued to implement internal 
reforms aimed at ameliorating socio-economic factors that 
create conditions conducive to extremism.  The National 
Initiative for Human Development, launched by King Mohammed 
VI in 2005, is a USD 1.2 billion program designed to generate 
employment, combat poverty, and improve infrastructure, with 
a special focus on rural areas.  The Embassy is chipping in 
with programs targeted at vulnerable youth and we have a 
proposal for FY 09 funding to sponsor prison reform and 
deradicalization. 
 
----------------- 
Counter-extremism 
----------------- 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Morocco's Ministry of Religious Endowments and 
Islamic Affairs (MOIA) also continues reforms launched in 
2004 to counter extremist ideology and promote religious 
moderation and tolerance.  In 2006, 30 imams were dismissed 
in favor of those preaching a government-sanctioned message. 
The MOIA also supervised revisions to the country's religious 
curriculum, broke with the precedent by appointing 50 women 
as spiritual guides at mosques, and installed a 
closed-circuit television network that broadcasts moderate 
religious sermons to 2,000 mosques each day. 
 
¶16.  (SBU) The GOM also emphasized adherence to human rights 
standards in the pursuit of terrorist suspects and increased 
law enforcement and justice transparency as part of its CT 
program.  The GOM this year provided NGOs unprecedented 
access to prisons and demonstrated unprecedented frankness in 
presenting to the public candid assessments of the terrorism 
 
threat. 
 
------------ 
Legal Reform 
------------ 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Following the suicide bombings in Casablanca in 
May 2003, Morocco passed laws to broaden the definition of 
terrorism, proposed heavy sentences for inciting terrorism, 
and increased investigative authorities, powers against 
suspected terrorists.  In an effort to combat terrorist 
financial transactions, the new laws also allowed for 
freezing of suspect accounts, and permitted the prosecution 
of terrorist finance related crimes. 
 
--------------------------------- 
Regional and International Issues 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶18.  (SBU) Border Troubles with Algeria:  The Moroccan 
relationship with Algeria remains tense, and the border 
between the two countries remains closed.  Although 
possessing common languages and some ethno-cultural roots, 
the two countries have evolved in politically divergent 
directions.  Territorial tensions began shortly after 
Algerian independence, when a dispute over the demarcation of 
the border between the two countries in 1963 led to a brief 
period of hostilities known as the Desert (or Sand) War.  For 
the last 30 years, a major bone of contention has been the 
Western Sahara issue and Algerian support for the self 
-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and its 
political and military leadership, the POLISARIO Front.  The 
Moroccan purchase of F-16's was apparently motivated by the 
sense of threat from a previous Algerian purchase of advanced 
aircraft from Russia.  In March, Morocco publicly proposed 
opening the border between the two countries, which was 
quickly rebuffed by the Government of Algeria (GOA).  Morocco 
subsequently made a second proposal to upgrade bilateral 
dialogue, to which there has not yet been a public response 
from Algeria.  In the interim, the two Prime Ministers met, 
in their role as leaders of the parties that led the North 
African states to independence, the highest level encounter 
in years, but with little broader impact. 
 
¶19.  (SBU) Western Sahara:  Moroccan foreign policy is 
dominated by defending and seeking political recognition of 
its sovereignty claims over Western Sahara.  The issue 
remains the most visible source of tension with Algeria, 
which has historically supported the POLISARIO's quest 
efforts for independence by way of a UN-sponsored referendum. 
 The issue provoked Morocco to leave the African Union and 
helped block regional integration through the Arab Maghreb 
Union.  Approximately one year ago, Morocco proposed a new 
autonomy plan for Western Sahara, and a series of 
UN-sponsored negotiations with the POLISARIO began in 
Manhasset, New York.  This proposal, deemed "serious and 
credible" by the USG, would provide Sahrawis--indigenous 
people of Western Sahara--autonomy in administering local 
affairs while respecting Moroccan sovereignty over the 
territory.  After the recent renewal of the mandate of the UN 
peacekeeping mission, the U.S. announced we considered the 
independence option for the territory, "not realistic," which 
was appreciated by the GOM. 
 
 
***************************************** 
Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website; 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/rabat 
***************************************** 
 
Riley