RABAT (Reuters) - Teachers, lecturers, a police officer and a journalist were among 32 people arrested by Morocco's security services in an operation to break up a suspected jihadist cell, the government said on Tuesday.
The suspects were rounded up in the capital Rabat, inCasablanca and other towns across the country in the past twodays and security analysts have expressed surprise at thevaried background and high profile of some of those held.
The best known are leading Islamist political figuresMustapha Moatassim, Mohammed Amine Ragala and Mohamed Merouani.
Others include company directors, government employees, ahotel manager in the popular tourist destination of Marrakeshand a correspondent for Hezbollah television channel Al Manar,according to a list published by state news agency MAP.
The cell's alleged leader, Abdelkader Belliraj, is aMoroccan living in Belgium. MAP said the group was "verydangerous" and had links with other organisations active inMorocco and abroad.
Since suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca fiveyears ago, the Moroccan authorities have rounded up thousandsof Islamists suspected of planning to overthrow the northAfrican country's secular-minded monarchy and imprisonedhundreds.
More bombings hit the normally peaceful country last Marchand April when seven men blew themselves up in Casablanca,killing themselves and a police officer.
The government made dozens of arrests in the monthsfollowing the bombings, raised its national security alert tomaximum and deployed extra security personnel. The alert waslowered after September elections passed off peacefully.
As with the 2003 attacks, many of last year's bombers werepoor, jobless and impressionable young slum dwellers drawn toviolence on the promise of eternity in paradise.
But cases have emerged of better-off Moroccans being linkedto jihadist cells. Among 50 suspected militants jailed for upto 25 years last month for plotting bombings and robberies werethe wives of two pilots at national airline Royal Air Maroc.
Rights activists said the government's decision to arrestthree Islamist politicians could be a form of revenge on itsopponents.
"I condemn and deplore these detentions ... due to theillogical accusations concerning terrorist acts, just as Icondemn all the political detentions our country has endured,"said Abdeslam Adid of Moroccan human rights group AMDH.
Human rights groups say the security services abuse therights of many people arrested under anti-terrorism laws andinsist many are held on unfounded suspicions, something thegovernment denies.
(Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer and Zakia Abdennebi)
