Terrorist Networks Lure Young Moroccans to War in Far-Off Iraq

The recruiters screen rigorously, according to counterterrorism officials. Designated "watchers" hang around radical mosques and other places to look for young men angry about the conflicts in places such as Iraq and the Palestinian territories. For months, the watchers try to whip up the potential volunteers' emotions further and convince them that they have a religious duty to intervene.

"The recruitment does not exclusively take place in the poorest parts of society, nor in the category of illiterates," said Benmoussa, the interior minister. Instead, he said, recruiters "target a category of people that is extremely sensitive to what they consider international injustice."

Candidates are subjected to psychological assessments from a distance to determine if they are really willing to die for the cause. Background checks are run to ensure that they are not informers, officials said. Those who make the final cut are assigned to "handlers," who arrange the trip to Iraq.

The volunteers are sometimes trained to use explosives and weapons before they leave, but it is rare that they are taught more than the basics, said Nick Pratt, a retired Marine colonel and terrorism expert at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

The recruits are valued more for their zeal than their skill because of their primary mission: suicide attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces, as well as Shiite foes in the nation's sectarian conflict. Pratt said research has shown that suicide bombings are embraced by networks affiliated with al-Qaeda because they are more lethal and generate more publicity. He said a suicide attack, on average, causes six times as many deaths and 12 times as many injuries as a conventional attack, such as a roadside bomb explosion.

"The recruiters for al-Qaeda are some of the most important players right now in that organization," Pratt said. "They have a profile, and they know what they're looking for in terms of recruits." Counterterrorism officials, he added, are more concerned with stopping the recruiters than the volunteers. "They're not so much concerned with the guys who become cannon fodder," he said.

Moroccan authorities have made several rounds of arrests since November, many of them in Tetouan. Most recently, on Jan. 4, the government said it had arrested 26 people and "smashed a terrorist structure with international connections specializing in the recruitment and transport of volunteers to Iraq."

Some Moroccan lawmakers and relatives of those arrested said U.S. officials have pressured Morocco to act since they discovered the Tetouan connection to Iraq. The U.S. Embassy in Rabat declined to comment.

Mustapha Khalfi, a member of Parliament from the opposition Justice and Development Party, said the government was arresting suspects, based on little evidence, to please U.S. officials. "They are pushing us to do some bad things," he said. "This conflicts with U.S. policy to strengthen democracy and to strengthen human rights."

Khalfi said the number of Moroccans joining the fight in Iraq had been exaggerated. At the same time, he added, as long as the U.S. military remains in Iraq, many Moroccans will feel duty-bound to help the resistance.

"There's a long tradition in the Muslim world of solidarity against occupation," he said. "It's rooted in our society. To explain it and understand it is easy."

Special correspondent Hasan Shammari in Baqubah, Iraq, contributed to this report.