Unidentified European intelligence agencies have warned their Moroccan counterparts that militants are planning attacks against political, business and tourist targets in the North African country, the Moroccan newspaper Al Ahdath Al Maghribia reported May 9. Europeans learned of the plots, to some extent, through the interrogation of several North African suspects in Frankfurt, Germany, the newspaper said. Warnings about terrorist attacks in Morocco are not surprising, considering the proven involvement of some Moroccans in the jihadist movement, and the fact that radical Islamism is gaining traction in the country. To date, Moroccan al Qaeda operatives have participated in attacks against Saudi Arabia, Spain and the Netherlands. The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group was also suspected of involvement in the May 2003 attacks in Casablanca, Morocco, and the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain. Furthermore, several arrests of al Qaeda operatives in Morocco highlight the extent of the jihadist presence there. Italian officials recently detained several Moroccans allegedly belonging to a Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat cell, which was allegedly plotting to attack targets in northern Italy. The Italians deported the suspects to Morocco rather than trying them in Italy, where the legal process could have taken years. Many governments prefer this option, fearing that large militant populations in the jails increase the risk that other militants will take hostages or commit attacks to secure their comrades' release. Although this gets the suspects out of the country, it sometimes puts them back into circulation in other areas. If the process is properly carried out, however, the accused militants can be tailed or interrogated by authorities in their home countries. The interrogations in Germany could have contributed some of the information that led to the warnings, as the newspaper contends. Spanish authorities, who monitor the Strait of Gibraltar and northern Morocco to keep immigrants from sneaking across the narrow waterway, could also have picked up on information about militant activity, either through visual reconnaissance or signals intelligence (SIGINT). Human intelligence obtained from interrogations, possibly combined with Spanish SIGINT or other information, could have allowed the Europeans to piece together enough of a picture to warn the Moroccans. The only potential problem with this process, however, is that the chatter — the bits of collected intelligence — that led to the warning could have been misinterpreted at several points in the collection process. While one interpretation of the data points to an attack against Morocco, another could indicate that the targets are actually in Europe, where the information was collected. When information has passed through several hands, vital intelligence can be lost in translation. The warning indicates that there are strong connections between Moroccan extremists in Europe and their counterparts back in the homeland.