Moroccan fighters in Syria want to return home without getting arrested. They have expressed their wish to negotiate and hold talks with the authorities before taking their primordial step. Moroccan fighters training and fighting in Syria have expressed their wish of returning home. Establishing a body called «The Association of Moroccans in Syria», these jihadists want to negotiate their potential return to Morocco. The two representatives who signed the communiqué namely, Adib Anouar and Yassine El Ghazoui, refused in their statement to identify the Moroccan nationals who joined ISIS as «fighters» and «terrorists». For them, they are just «migrants». In this regard, the ones who launched this call have asked El Othmani's government to «consider the file of migrants and find a solution to preserve their dignity». In addition to that, they invited the authorities to «send a delegation to Syria to inquire on the conditions in which Moroccans live». Holding talks with the authorities The people behind the «Association of Moroccans in Syria» want to initiate talks with the Moroccan authorities, in order to avoid their arrest, in accordance with the counter terrorist law set up in 2003 and amended in 2015. They have presented themselves as «victims», clarifying that they are not intending to carry out attacks in the Kingdom. «Publishing such a statement comes as a large number of Moroccan fighters are stuck in Turkey and want to return to their country», says Abderrahim El Ghazali, the spokesperson the Joint Committee for the defense of Islamists Detainees (CDDI). «Some of them are living in refugee centers not far from the Syrian-Turkish borders, while others have managed to settle down in other Turkish cities. Certainly, the majority hopes to return to Morocco, but not at any price», he says. The ball is in the court of the Moroccan authorities, especially since these groups also include women who have joined their husbands, as well as children born in the battlefield. However, the signatories of the abovementioned communiqué want to clarify that their initiative is not launched to support Moroccan jihadists.
