PrairiePundit

 Epoch Times: President Donald Trump on Friday received Morocco ’s highest award for his work in advancing a normalization deal between Israel and Morocco, a senior administration official told Reuters. In a private Oval Office ceremony, Princess Lalla Joumala Alaoui, who is Morocco’s ambassador to the United States, gave Trump the Order of Muhammad, an award given only to heads of state. It was a gift from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz received other awards for their work on the Israel-Morocco deal, which was reached in December. The United States in the last five months helped broker deals between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. The agreements are aimed at normalizing relations and opening economic ties. ... Trump should be getting more awards for his efforts in the Middle East.  Bypassing the POaldestinian obstructionists was one of the wisest moves in decades of effo...

AP/ABC News: Lebanese businessman wanted by US detained in Morocco ... The lawyer for Kassim Tajeddine said he was arrested in Casablanca on Sunday while on his way from Guinea to Beirut. ... The U.S. treasury says Tajeddine funneled proceeds from Tajco, a multi-national business venture, to Hezbollah. The Shiite militant group has gone to war with Israel in the past and is now fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces. ... Hezballah is a Shia group made up of ethnic and religious bigots.  The group was behind the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon in the 1980's and has been constantly at war with Israel.  They have also joined forces with Iran in defending the Assad regime in Syria.  They have thousands of missiles aimed at Israel.

NY Times: Morocco Said to Ban Sale of Burqas, Citing Security Concerns A market in Tetuan, Morocco. Relatively few Moroccan women wear the burqa, a full-body veil generally seen in more conservative Muslim societies. I suspect the main reason some countries require burqas is their men have poor impulse control.  We are seeing this poor impulse control showing itself in Europe where rapes and sexual assaults have skyrocketed since the Muslim migration began in recent years.

Washington Post: Islamic State, growing stronger in Libya, sets its sights on fragile neighbor Tunisia A sophisticated assault in Ben Guerdane, long known as an incubator for jihadists, shows the militants’ growth in North Africa. A recent plot to attack Morocco was also recent thwarted.   The ISIL operative behind the plot was from Chad.  ISIL has expansive ambitions that have not been slowed by the attacks.  The group tends to lash out in other directions when attacked, and this plan may be in response to pressure in Syria.

AP: Morocco unravels plot to attack tourists, Western facilities The plot was by an ISIL affiliate from Chad.

NY Times: Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Said to Be Held by Morocco Morocco appears to be violating diplomatic assurances about how it would treat a Guantánamo detainee who was recently transferred by the United States. I don't blame Morocco for holding the guy.  He probably should still be at Gitmo.  The administration seems to have a policy of releasing people with a history of terrorism in the hopes they will quit being who they are.   The release of Gitmo detainees is one of the more ridiculous acts of the Obama administration.

Benny Avni: Coordinated multi-arrest raids in Spain and Morocco this week indicate that it’s high time we do away with the “lone wolf” theory when fighting terror. Madrid and Rabat coordinated their simultaneous raids, and I’m told they acted partially on information from Paris. All in all, 14 men were arrested on various charges related to recruitment of fighters for ISIS. The raids followed last week’s much-publicized train incident in France , which could have become one of Europe’s bloodiest, but for the heroism of four Americans and several other train passengers who bravely disarmed the would-be terrorist. Everything in that incident screamed “lone wolf,” and indeed that’s how it was initially reported. The “wolf” in question was Ayoub El-Khazzani, a Moroccan-born 26-year-old who has lived in Spain and other European countries since 2007, where he was radicalized. He first pumped himself up watching ISIS-produced propaganda in the bathroom of a high-speed train traveling in Eur...

Politico: ‘Hillary Clinton Sold Her Soul When They Accepted That Money’ The king of Morocco, the Clintons and a problem that just won’t go away. Those who feel they have been screwed and abused by the government think that the Clinton's will take the side of the oppressors.

The whiff of corruption is present on this Clinton tour of Africa.

Fox News: State Department warns US businesses in North Africa of ISIS retaliation The specific concern is in Morocco but the reality is that ISIL will kill any American that it can get in its sights.  It is what they do.

Washington Post: Salafists destroy ancient carvings in Morocco Having normal relations with this kind of cultural idiocy is more likely to return us the the dark ages and lives of misery.  The Salafists in Egypt were the ones responsible for stirring up the tantrums by mobs of movie critics.   The group seems unusually effective in finding ways to lower the regard for Islam.

Daily Mail: Moroccans demand change to Islamic penal code after girl, 16, kills herself because judge forced her to marry her RAPIST That has to be one of the least intelligent laws on anyone's list.  Who in their right mind would want such and unjust result?  I am glad to see the Moroccans are demanding a change.

Image via Wikipedia Arab News: Morocco said it had arrested a member of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) among 26 others who planned to attack security services and rob banks using weapons they hid in an area of the disputed Western Sahara . Quoting an Interior Ministry statement, the local media said Moroccan security forces recently broke up the 27-member cell and had discovered weapon caches in Amghala, an oasis located in the disputed Western Sahara. "Moroccan security services have succeeded in dismantling a terrorist cell of 27 members, among whom is a member of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb who was tasked by this organization to set up a rear base in Morocco where it would plan terrorist acts," it said. The ministry did not say when or where they were arrested. "Members of the cell, supervised by a Moroccan citizen who is in the Al-Qaeda camps in northern Mali , have been planning terrorist acts using explosive belts and car bombs that mainly t...