I. O. ABRAMOVA

Doctor of Economics

Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences

Keywords: Russia, Morocco, international security, terrorism, scientific cooperation

On February 12-13, 2016, Director of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Economics, Professor I. O. Abramova and Deputy Director of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Economics, Professor L. L. Fitouni visited the Kingdom of Morocco at the invitation of the Moroccan Center for Strategic Studies (ICSI), where they took part in the 7th International Security Forum "Marrakech Security Forum".

This major international meeting of experts on African security, held under the patronage of King Mohammed VI of Morocco, was organized by the ICSI and the African Federation for Strategic Studies. The forum in Marrakech was attended by more than 200 delegates: ministers of several African countries, government officials, diplomats and military personnel, security experts, scientists, representatives of regional and international organizations,as well as leading world media. Russia was represented at the Forum by a delegation from the RAI Institute of Africa and employees of the Russian Embassy in Morocco.

The main topic of scientific discussions was the threat of international terrorism in Africa. The forum discussed the prerequisites and conditions conducive to the spread of this threat, sub-regional and local specific features of the activities of terrorist groups, countering the financing of terrorism, the problem of de-radicalization of returning fighters, international security cooperation, including information exchange and coordination of the work of competent authorities of African countries and their partners outside the continent.

Special attention was paid to ISIL (DAESH), which today, as the forum delegates emphasized, is the main threat to world security. According to the majority of participants, it is the joint fight against ISIL that can become the basis for joint actions and overcoming the contradictions of old and new players in the global political and economic field.

Most of the delegates agreed that, having declared itself as a victorious force, ISIS has become a magnet for attracting attention. The article was prepared with the financial support of the RGNF. Project N 16 - 07 - 0009 "The phenomenon of the Islamic State in the context of the development of modern Eastern society".

a number of extremist Islamic organizations, including on the territory of neighboring states. Today, GIL is also turning into a global center of irreconcilable Islamic radicals, and the number of militants is rapidly increasing, including due to the addition of jihadists from the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, including the Russian Federation, America and even Australia. The "winning team" was joined by fighters of the Free Syrian Army and Jabhat al-Nusra, linked to al-Qaeda.

Delegates also noted that the ideas of ISIL are spreading at an unprecedented rate in the world thanks to the use of state-of-the-art information and PR technologies, and the sources of terrorist financing are very diverse and difficult to control. Many participants in their speeches emphasized the need to stop the financial operations of ISIL as a necessary and most effective condition for the fight against this terrorist quasi-State.

In a number of speeches, it was emphasized that ISIL claims to be a Muslim civilizational response to the concept of civil society proposed by Western civilization.From the point of view of value bases, according to ISIS propagandists, its main principle is social justice, allegedly immanent in "true Islam". Despite the extreme manifestations of irreconcilability towards enemies, which in our eyes show signs of barbarism and savagery, the fundamental ideological platform of ISIS is a state of social justice based on the dogmas of Islam, where everyone is equal before Allah.

ISIS ideologues claim that Islam is an open religion, and ISIS is a network state, a "state without borders", an allegedly ideal state of Muslim believers, a community of communities, and not a pyramid-shaped social structure typical of most civilized states built on the Western model. In fact, ISIL is a replacement for the niche that the socialist ideology occupied in the minds of people, primarily the underprivileged, before the collapse of the USSR. Therefore, ISIL has supporters not only in the Muslim world, but also in Christian countries that do not accept bourgeois values and, by joining ISIL, are fighting, in their opinion, with the injustice in the world, which is supported by the countries of the "golden billion".

According to the forum delegates, the fight against terrorism begins with propaganda, education, education, and the fight against poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance, which are common in developing countries and create a favorable environment for the spread of radical ideas.

Issues of improving the socio-economic level of development of states are directly related to the possibility of removing children and young people from the streets and from those places where they are actively trying to recruit, including using the unresolved problems of the region, including the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The forum participants agreed that there should be a clear scheme of everyday, not necessarily advertised interaction between those who are ready to fight terrorism and extremism.

Special attention was also paid to the study of the integrated approach used by the Moroccan authorities to solve the problems of the fight against terrorism. A special session of the forum was devoted to the Moroccan experience in the field of national security. The participants of this session from the Moroccan side stressed that the country's authorities, in addition to building a clear and highly professional security system, pay great attention to solving social problems, developing and financing special programs to combat poverty. In addition, since the spring of 2015, Morocco has established the King Mohammed VI Imam Training Institute, which trains religious cadres for the entire African continent. Much attention is also paid to working with the Moroccan diaspora abroad.

All these efforts have made Morocco one of the few Muslim countries where terrorism has failed to take root. According to the forum delegates, the Moroccan experience can and should be used in other countries with Muslim populations.

As a result of the forum, a Joint Declaration was adopted, reflecting the main tasks and methods of combating the modern terrorist threat.

I. O. Abramova and L. L. Fitu-pi delivered plenary reports at the forum on international cooperation in combating the threat of terrorism on the African continent and the mutual use of experience in countering the recruitment process of jihadists, as well as on the de-radicalization of militants returning from war zones. They noted in their speeches that the Russian Federation has established good cooperation with the Moroccan special services in the fight against the international terrorist threat. The visit of Fouad Ali al-Himma, Adviser to the King of Morocco, to Moscow in January 2016 and his meeting with Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev is an important sign that shows that Russian-Moroccan relations in the security sphere will develop very actively.

The Russian participants stressed that using the platform of the International Security Forum organized by the Moroccans will allow, on the one hand, to develop relations with Morocco in the future, and on the other, it will provide an opportunity to familiarize the international community with Russia's position on the fight against international terrorism. Along with representatives of Arab and African countries, the forum was attended by delegates from the United States and the European Union; it was an opportunity to exchange views on a number of international issues, which is extremely important for both the Russian Federation and Western states. It is precisely the lack of exchange of views and approaches that hinders the solution of the problems that international terrorism poses to all of us today.

During the visit, Irina Abramova signed a cooperation agreement between the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moroccan Center for Strategic Studies. Both sides highly appreciated the importance of Russia's participation in the work of African scientific and political forums and expressed their intention to deepen mutual cooperation. At a press conference after the signing of the Agreement, Irina Abramova spoke about Russia's position on acute international issues and the interest of Russian researchers in studying the Moroccan experience in countering terrorism. Her speech in Arabic attracted a lot of press interest and was widely covered by local media, in the Moroccan blog sphere and on social networks.

In general, the Moroccan media paid great attention to the participation of the Russian delegation in the Forum and, in particular, Russia's position on a number of key issues of world politics and security. Irina Abramova gave an interview on three television channels of the country - the First, French-language and Africanews-recently created by the well-known Euronews channel specifically for broadcasting to Africa. Information about the signing of the Agreement was published in the largest Moroccan newspapers - "Le Matin", "L'opin-nyon" and "Le Mag", as well as the ITAR-TASS news agency.

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