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Morocco on edge following series of suicide attacks

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.
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