CASABLANCA, May 17: Forty-one people were killed and another 100 injured in suicide bombings here on Friday night, hours after the United States warned that the Al Qaeda network was poised to strike again.
A Jewish centre and a Spanish club were among the targets of the second major attack within a week on an Arab country with historically close ties to the United States. Saudi Arabia was hit by multiple suicide bombings on Monday.
“International terrorism struck Casablanca tonight,” Moroccan Interior Minister Al Mustapha Sahel was quoted as saying by a television network.
Casablanca, on the Atlantic coast and about 95kms southwest of Rabat, Morocco’s capital, has one of the world’s biggest mosques and was immortalized in the 1942 Hollywood film of the same name.
Suicide bombers carried out five attacks and as many as 10 of the dead may have been assailants, Mr Sahel said.
Seventeen of the injured were in a serious condition, he added, raising fears of a higher death toll.
The minister said three Moroccans had been arrested. One of them was a suspected bomber who was wounded.
Two Spaniards were killed and three hurt, one seriously, a diplomatic source quoted Moroccan authorities as saying. An Italian was also killed in the Spanish club blast, Italy’s foreign ministry said.
A French embassy official said three Frenchmen lost their lives in the bombings.
Two policemen were killed outside Belgium’s consulate, which took the brunt of a blast apparently aimed at a Jewish-owned restaurant opposite, embassy staff in Rabat said.
JEWISH, SPANISH TARGETS: Some of the Casablanca targets had Jewish connections and one was linked to Spain, which strongly backed the Iraq invasion.
The bombers first struck the Hotel Farah in the old city, a Jewish community centre, a Jewish-owned Italian restaurant and the Casa de Espana social club.
A bomb seemingly destined for an old Jewish cemetery appeared to have gone off early, before the other blasts around 10pm (2200 GMT) on Friday.
Local journalists said the bulk of the dead were at the club, popular with Spanish business people and diplomats.
“The doorman, poor thing, they cut his head off, like this, with a big knife...then they left one, two bombs,” the secretary of the Casa de Espana club told Spanish radio.
“Tables turned upside down, everybody was bleeding, some were on the ground, others without head, without arms, it was horrible,” said Rafael Bermudez, 58, president of the club.
The hotel’s security chief said two assailants burst in and were stopped by staff. “One of them stabbed one of my agents with a knife, the other agent tried to get hold of the second attacker and that’s when he blew himself up.”
‘KILLERS ON THE LOOSE’: The blasts came hours after US President George Bush warned of “killers on the loose” as terror alerts spread around the world after the bombings in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Monday.
“It is certainly a wake-up call to many that the war on terror continues,” Mr Bush told reporters.
On Saturday, he warned in a radio address of possible new attacks from Al Qaeda, which he said was weakened but “not idle” after US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.—Reuters
CASABLANCA, May 17: Forty-one people were killed and another 100 injured in suicide bombings here on Friday night, hours after the United States warned that the Al Qaeda network was poised to strike again.
