Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group

The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group or Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group is a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda. It is sometimes referred to as GICM after its French name Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain. GICM is one of several North African terrorist franchises spawned in Afghanistan during the tenure of the Taliban; compare Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Along with other al-Qaeda affiliates, GICM has been banned worldwide by the UN 1267 Committee since shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.^[1] It is therefore banned also by various individual countries including the United States.^[2][3]

GICM claims to intend to install a fundamentalist Islamist regime in Morocco, but has members around Western Europe and French Canada as well. The GICM has been associated with major militant attacks. In May 2003, an attack in Casablanca killed 45 people, including the 12 suicide bombers.^[4] In 2004, an attack on the public transportation system in Madrid killed 191 and wounded more than 1900. Salafia Jihadia, an offshoot of the GICM, is blamed for both. It was named by Spanish interior minister Angel Acebes as the "priority" for investigations into the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks, although he insisted that the possible involvement of other militant organisations had not been ruled out.

On October 10, 2005, Britain's Home Office banned GICM and 14 other groups from operating in the United Kingdom. Under Britain's Terrorism Act 2000, membership of such a group can carry a 10-year prison sentence.

The fourteen banned militant groups were:

• Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
• Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain
• Ansar al-Islam
• Al Ittihad Al Islamia
• Islamic Jihad Union
• Ansar al-Sunna
• Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin
• Harakat ul-Mujahidin/Alami
• Jundallah
• Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
• Lashkar-e Jhangvi
• Khuddam u-Islam
• Jamaat ul Furquan
• Harakat ul Jihad ul Islami
• Harakat ul Islami (Bangladesh)

See also

• Islamism
• Islamist terrorism

References

1. ^ UN list of affiliates of al-Qaeda and the Taliban
2. ^ Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), United States Department of State
3. ^ Designation of GICM by Secretary of State Powell, 5 December 2002
4. ^ M. Bruguière est cité comme témoin devant un tribunal, Le Monde, 1st of June, 2007 (French)

External resources

• Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, MITP Terrorism Knowledge Base
• Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, GlobalSecurity.org
• Athena Intelligence Advanced Research Network on Insurgency and Jihadist Terrorism (former Jihad Monitor)