After the operations that led last week to the arrest of several young people from Laâyoune who are suspected of belonging to a recruitment cell for young Moroccans with a view to sending them to Mali to strengthen the ranks of AQIM militias, the elements of the Royal Gendarmerie invested, on Friday, November 30, a house in the subdivision of district 84 of Laâyoune. This operation, which took place in collaboration with members of the national security, comes following the interception of two Toyota terrain vehicles, along the security belt on the southern border of the country and which were transporting handguns including submachine guns and Kalashnikovs.

According to sources close to the operation that allowed the law enforcement agents to invest the house, the latter discovered quantities of drugs, weapons including 4 swords and the sum of 160 million centimes. The house was registered in the name of a person who is said to be from Errachidia. The suspect is said to be at the head of this cell which engages in arms trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal immigration and which includes several members including inhabitants of Laâyoune. Two vehicles were also seized by law enforcement in the house's garage.

Not far from there, in the district called Raha, also in Laâyoune, the national security detectives flushed out a group of four young people who also allegedly belong to the same cell and who were in possession of weapons and large quantities of drugs.

Another individual of unknown origin and who possessed no papers was also arrested.

In Tan Tan, a small, generally peaceful town, police elements surrounded a house in the popular Tiguiria district. They had reportedly received information that this house was housing two young men belonging to the cells recently dismantled in different cities of the country.

All these operations remind us of the one in 2008 during which the Royal Gendarmerie discovered an arms cache in the middle of the desert, at a place called Amgala located south of Smara. This cache, as we remember, contained a whole arsenal of weapons and ammunition including rocket launchers.