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Morocco and three EU countries call for monitoring jihadists' messages online  

The internet is a means of communication for terrorists, which help them recruit, and arrange attacks using coded messages that the intelligence services cannot decode. For that reason, Morocco and three countries from the European Union, namely Spain, France and Belgium met in Mechelen to discuss this problem.

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Public prosecutors from France, Spain, Morocco and Belgium met on Wednesday, 4th of October, in Mechelen, a city between Brussels and Antwerp, to better coordinate on the fight against terrorism. Morocco was represented by Hassan Daki, the King’s attorney general, said the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.

The senior officials from the four countries called for reinforcing the monitoring of Internet, especially social media, where terrorist groups recruit jihadists. It is also regarded as an effective means of communication for planning terrorist attacks.

The French representative acknowledged the fact that he had «difficulties at the moment trying to decode certain messages». «We must gather our voices to find out solutions» to this problem, he suggested.

A problem already discussed in June

Meanwhile, the Belgian Minister of Justice, Koen Geens, who attended the opening session, stressed that «terrorists connect with each other using Viber, Skype and Telgram. These messages are coded and we must use these data in order to avoid attacks».

For his part, Hassan Daki warned against the consequences of jihadists coming back from battle fields in Iraq and Syria to their countries. «These are real bombs who threaten security», he said.

For the record, EU leaders and governments, at the summit in June, had asked Facebook, Twitter and Google to be actively engaged in anti-terrorism cooperation.

Four months later, only three EU countries, obviously the most affected by terrorist threats, took the initiative to act together and contribute with Morocco.