In predicting where Al Qaeda will pitch its tent next, Western intelligence agencies should pay extra attention to north Africa. As Morocco’s foreign minister, Taieb Fassi Fihri, told me last week at a Manhattan hotel suite: The terrorist group has “decided to invest in this area.”

Speaking of the region “from Mauritania to Somalia,” Mr. Fassi Fihri portrayed an area rich in deserts, lawlessness, and weak and despotic regimes whose national interests prevent government agencies from cooperating in the war against terror. “it’s a paradise for Al Qaeda,” he said.

Other Islamic terrorists are also active in north Africa. There are some in Washington who tag anyone linking Shiite and Sunni terror groups a nincompoop incapable of understanding ecumenical subtleties, but they may be in for a rude awakening. Like everywhere else in the Muslim world, Iranian operatives are well represented in this Sunni-dominated area.

Morocco is well positioned as a Western ally in the global war on terror. While it is not quite a democracy, King Mohammed VI allowed elected Islamic parties to take their seats in parliament after the 2002 election, the fairest in the country’s history. The king, who remains the real power in Morocco, inherited the throne from his father, King Hassan II, but as Mr. Fassi Fihri points out, in the Middle East the transfer of power to son from father without elections is not reserved for kingdoms alone.

Hopes were dashed that Syria’s Baathist tyranny would change even a little as President Assad assumed powers after his father’s passing. But Morocco’s heirloom transfer of power did change things, and it is now one of a handful of Arab countries — along with Mauritania, Jordan, and Lebanon — defined by Freedom House as “partially free,” as opposed to “not free.” even as Morocco is at times justifiably criticized by various human rights organizations, its record has much improved under King Mohammed.

The diversity of Berbers, Arabs, and Jews, to name a few, who have lived side by side for centuries, as well as its nearness to Europe, has made Morocco a different country than many of its neighbors, Mr. Fassi Fihri says. Meanwhile, Rabat’s close connection with America — and even more so its refusal to demonize Israel and the king’s policy of welcoming in Israeli and other Jews of Moroccan descendants, allowing them to conduct business in Morocco — has raised the Islamists’ attentions. “When Al Qaeda talks about Morocco,” Mr. Fassi Fihri said, “they say we made a deal with the Zionists.”

A series of deadly bombings of Jewish targets in Casablanca in 2003 has led to an increased campaign of anti-Al Qaeda measures, some of them excessively harsh, and some directed at legitimate political enemies. Across the border, a bombing of a U.N. site in Algiers has led the Algerian government to quickly assume a public relations management mode. it vowed to investigate the incident, but due to the full cooperation of the United nations it assured no shortcomings by either the Algerian government or Turtle Bay will be exposed.

Algeria and Morocco have long fought over Maghreb regional issues. Mr. Fassi Fihri was in town for talks under U.N. auspices over the fate of Western Sahara, where the decades-old dispute between Rabat, which controls the area, and the Algerian-backed pro-independence Polisario is unlikely to be solved anytime soon.

In 1994, as part of the regional hegemony struggle, Algeria sealed its common border with Morocco. Now Rabat wants to end the closure. “What is the connection between [the border closure] and Western Sahara?” Mr. Fassi Fihri asked last week. Yesterday, Algiers made clear the border would reopen only under a comprehensive regional deal that would include an agreement between Morocco and the Polisario.

Mr. Fassi Fihri is right: Among the region’s many problems, a takeover of one of its countries by Islamists, who sneer at national borders as a crusader-Zionist invention, is probably the most pressing. Arabs have long used excuses — such as the plight of Western Sahara’s ethnic Sahrawis or the perceived oppression of Palestinian Arabs — to avoid cooperating on solutions to their economic, social, and governance problems. now, pan-Islamic terrorists threaten these governments’ very survival.

As Rick and Louis realized in the most famous movie ever made about a Moroccan city, joining hands in the common struggle could begin a beautiful regional friendship. Will it happen? Unlike “Casablanca,” the Maghreb’s reality does not take place on a Hollywood soundstage.

bavni@nysun.com