Moroccan security forces yesterday kept up the hunt for suicide bombers in Casablanca a day after two brothers blew themselves up near the US consulate.
Five suicide bombers have killed themselves in the Moroccan port city in five days and security was tight as Casablanca remained on edge, fearful of new strikes even though police said they had arrested the ringleaders behind earlier attacks.
Events in Morocco alongside coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Algiers on Wednesday, which left 33 dead and were claimed by an al-Qaeda group, have fueled fears of increased militant strikes across North Africa.
Mohamed Maha set off explosives 40m from the heavily guarded entrance to the US consular building in Casablanca on Saturday.
After the explosion his younger brother, Omar Maha ran off along the Boulevard Moulay Youssef towards the American Language Center, a private school, where he blew himself up, witnesses said.
There were no other fatalities but one woman was said to have been injured in the blasts.
Police arrested six people in the area, including one man who was found with an empty explosives belt, a police source said.
The two brothers lived with their father and stepmother in a two room apartment in the Derb Sultan district, near where three suicide bombers killed themselves on Tuesday to avoid arrest by the police. A fourth suspect was shot dead by police.
Mohamed, 32, printed T-shirts for a clothing company and his brother was a street vendor, according to neighbors who said they were no signs of militant activity by the pair.
Mohamed Maha "was dressed in jeans and had a black pullover and old sandals and he looked poor and miserable. He blew himself up three meters from one of the police vans," said eyewitness Mohammad, a security guard at a nearby bank.
"Some of his entrails ended up on the bank's terrace," he said.
Police announced they had arrested the head of the group responsible for suicide explosions at a Casblanca Internet cafe on March 11 and on Tuesday.
The unnamed man and his deputy were arrested in a district on the outskirts of Casablanca, on Thursday during raids that followed Tuesday's blasts.
Police said that the men led them to an apartment which contained equipment possibly used for attacks.
"In their room, in which all the windows had been covered, we found communications equipment, documents and two bags," a police official said.
Police said they had been able to identify the rest of the group and were actively looking for them.
One of the trio who killed themselves on Tuesday was the brother of a man who died in a March 11 explosion at a Casablanca Internet cafe that sparked the police hunt.
Officials said all the men involved in the March 11 and this week's incidents grew up in the Sidi Moumen area.
A police official said Saturday's incident was "a desperate act in response to the successful crackdown in recent weeks by the police and security services to dismantle terrorist cells."
Terrorism analysts in France said the group behind the spate of bombings did not appear well organized.
Louis Caprioli, a former head of the French intelligence agency, the DST, said that while the March 11 blast when one militant accidentally blew himself up showed "an important terrorist network" was being assembled, the lack of preparation in this week's attacks meant the group "was not serious."
Saturday's blasts follow suicide bomb attacks in the capital of neighboring Algeria including one on the prime minister's office.
The attacks were claimed by a group calling itself al-Qaeda's North Africa branch.
On Saturday, the US embassy in Algiers issued a warning that militants may be planning more attacks in the capital.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not