RABAT: Morocco said on Wednesday that it had arrested 52 suspected militants inspired by the militant Islamic State group and that it had foiled several attacks in the North African kingdom by seizing weapons and bomb-making materials.

It is the largest group arrested in years and the latest of a series of cells that the authorities say they have found plotting attacks inside and outside Morocco.

The North African kingdom, an ally of the West against Islamist militancy, has been on high alert since 2014, when IS took control of large swathes of northern Iraq and Syria.

The 52 arrested were among 143 people investigated in many Moroccan cities and towns, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Many members of the group were planning to create an Islamic State province (Wilayat) in Morocco, the statement said. They intended to assassinate Moroccan security and military officers and tourists, as well as targeting prisons and festivals and other institutions in the country.

Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation, the judicial part of the Moroccan domestic intelligence service, has tracked suspected militants since IS established itself as a global threat.

Morocco has dismantled 38 suspected militant cells with IS ties since 2013, the statement said, adding 159 cells had been found since 2002.

Hundreds of fighters from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have joined Islamist militant forces in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadist wings in their home countries, security experts have said.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2016