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Fatiha Mejjati

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Fatiha Mejjati
فتيحة المجاطي
Born
Fatiha Mohamed Taher Hassani

1961 (age 62–63)
Casablanca, Morocco
Other namesLa Veuve Noire
Oum Adam

Fatiha Mohamed Taher Mejjati (née Hassani; born 1961 (1961)) is a Moroccan jihadist.[1] She is the widow of Karim Mejjati, co-founder of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group and member of Al-Qaeda.[2][3] Karim Mejjati is suspected of planning the 2003 Casablanca bombings and the 2004 Madrid train bombings.[4][5]

She is a member of ISIL and is believed to be living in Syria.[6] She was designated as a terrorist entity by the Moroccan Ministry of Justice in 2023, and a warrant has been issued for her arrest for alleged terrorist acts.[7]

Biography

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Fatiha Mohamed Taher Hassani was born in 1961 to a carpenter father and a housewife mother in Derb Sultan, Casablanca.[8][9] Hassani had five sisters and a brother.[9]

She received her Baccalauréat in Literature and Human Sciences in 1980 and received a degree in French private law from Hassan II University of Casablanca in 1985.[9][10]

She joined the Moroccan Institute of Management as a management assistant in 1990.[9][11] Hassani's radicalization began in 1991, as a result of Gulf War, she forced into retirement by the head of the institute for wearing a hijab.[12][9] Students circulate a petition in support of Hassani, the petition was signed by Karim Mejjati.[10][13] Fatiha bought Karim, who barely knew Arabic, a French translation of the Quran.[9][13] They married less than a year later.[9]

The pair had two sons. According to the Morocco World News, Karim Mejjat was the founder of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which it said owed allegiance to Osama bin Laden.[14] It reports that they moved to Afghanistan, when it was ruled by the Taliban. Foreign Policy reports they moved to Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002.

Her husband Karim is reported to have gone to Saudi Arabia, in 2003, where he served as an Al-Qaeda agent. However, he is also alleged to have planned the 2003 Casablanca bombings, in May 2003.[1] Fatiha and one of her sons were detained by Morocco for several months in Morocco in 2003.

Her husband Karim was also reported to have played a planning role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings.[1] In 2005 he was living in Saudi Arabia again, with one of the pair's sons, when they were killed during a gunfight with Saudi security forces in April, 2005.

France 24 interviewed Fatiha, and published a profile of her, after she published a warning to France that it should be concerned it would be attacked by jihadists.[1] In that interview she denied that she had any ties with al Qaeda, and clarified she did not know of any specific plans to attack France, rather, her warning was based on the perception that, since France sat out the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it had been turning against the Muslim world.

Her surviving son, Ilyas Mejjat, went to work for ISIL's media arm.[15]

After moving to the territory controlled by ISIL she came to lead the Al-Khansaa Brigade, an all-woman unit charged with enforcing the ISIL interpretation of female modesty, proper female attire.[16]

Jeune Afrique reported that she married a senior ISIL leader, in 2014.[17]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Al Qaeda's 'black widow' issues a warning". France 24. 2008-01-23. Archived from the original on 2019-03-06. Retrieved 2019-03-05. While Mejjati is careful to explain she has no links with al Qaeda, the 47-year-old Moroccan widow is no stranger to the Islamist threats in Europe and is believed to have had extensive contacts in hardline Islamist circles.
  2. ^ D., J.-M. (2008-01-20). "Une « femme libérée » qui deviendra l'égérie de l'islamisme". Le Parisien (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  3. ^ Barrada, Hamid. "Du lycée Lyautey à al-Qaïda". Jeune Afrique (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  4. ^ Pechberty, Matthieu. "Terrorisme: La menace s'accroît". Le Journal du Dimanche (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  5. ^ Taguieff, Pierre-André. (2008). La judéophobie des Modernes : des Lumières au jihad mondial. Paris: Jacob. ISBN 978-2-7381-1736-6. OCLC 247837353.
  6. ^ "« Elle a mis son intelligence au service du mal » : enquête sur la femme la plus redoutée de Daech, aujourd'hui en fuite". Middle East Eye (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  7. ^ "Mise à jour de la liste des inscriptions personnes physiques et entités sur la liste locale" (PDF). CNASU.
  8. ^ "Le combat d'une veuve de terroriste". Maroc Hebdo. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g "Dans l'intimité de Fatiha Mejjati". Maroc Hebdo. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  10. ^ a b "عائلة المجاطي.. قصة تستحق أن تروى". اليوم 24 (in Arabic). Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  11. ^ "كتاب «رحلتي مع المجاطي: من إمارة الملالي إلى خلافة البغدادي» للصحافي مصطفى الحسناوي". AL ITIHAD. 2022-05-30. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  12. ^ Aida Alami (2010-04-09). "Morocco's Misguided War on Terror". Foreign Policy magazine. Archived from the original on 2018-06-08. Retrieved 2019-03-05. These wives, mothers, and sisters of alleged terrorists detained by the Moroccan government have come from across the country to show their support for one of their own, Fatiha Mejjati. Inside the courtroom, Mejjati is bringing a suit against the Moroccan government for wrongfully detaining her and her then-11-year-old son for nine months in 2003.
  13. ^ a b Gagnet, Michaëlle (2009-04-12), La veuve noire d'Al Qaïda, M6, Tony Comiti Productions, retrieved 2022-11-15
  14. ^ Aziz Allilou (2014-07-10). "Morocco's Fatiha Mejjati Joins ISIS". Morocco World News. Rabat, Morocco. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2019-03-05. 53 year-old Fatiha Mejjati had previously lived a normal life as a student in Casablanca. When the first Gulf war broke out in 1990, she turned to radical Islam. Soon afterwards, she met Karim Mejjati, whom she married, and they moved together to live in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule.
  15. ^ Michael Pauron (2015-01-12). "Maroc : Fatiha Mejjati, la Veuve noire du jihad" [Morocco: Fatiha Mejjati, the black widow of jihad]. Jeune Afrique (in French). Archived from the original on 2018-07-31. Retrieved 2019-03-05. Son apologie du jihad, son allégeance au "calife" Baghdadi, ses menaces envers la France et son voile intégral en font une personnalité relayée et, dans une certaine mesure, influente. Surnommée Oum al-Mouminine ("la mère des croyants"), elle encadre les femmes de l'EI et se serait remariée avec l'un des responsables de l'organisation terroriste.
  16. ^ Souad Mekhennet, Joby Warrick (2017-11-26). "The jihadist plan to use women to launch the next incarnation of ISIS". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2019-03-05. Mejjati's reputation as a harsh enforcer of the group's legal codes is supported by multiple witnesses and court documents that describe floggings of women suspected of breaking the rules.[dead link‍]
  17. ^ Tarik Ben Larbi (2014-11-24). "Islamic State: Fatiha Mejjati, the black widow" [État islamique : Fatiha Mejjati, la veuve noire]. Jeune Afrique (in French). Archived from the original on 2019-03-06. Retrieved 2019-03-05. Un peu plus d'une semaine après son ralliement idéologique, Fatiha Mejjati posait en voile intégral devant le tribunal islamique de Jarabulus, un village syrien à la frontière avec la Turquie. Elle y a rejoint son fils Ilyas, membre de la puissante commission des médias au sein de Daesh. Reçue comme une héroïne, elle a suivi une formation militaire… et se serait mariée à un dirigeant de l'organisation.
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