CASABLANCA, 15 April 2007 — Two brothers blew themselves up near the US Consulate in Casablanca yesterday, while Moroccan police said they had arrested the ringleader behind earlier blasts in the city.
Saudi Arabia denounced the terrorist attacks in Morocco and Algeria as criminal acts and extended its condolences to the two governments and families of the victims. “The Kingdom has been following up the heinous terrorist explosions in Algeria and Morocco with deep concern and indignation,” an official source said, adding that the criminal acts were against the teachings of Islam.
In yesterday’s attack, one of the brothers, named by police as Mohamed Maha, set off explosives 40 meters from the entrance to the US Consulate here. “He 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,” the security guard added.
After the explosion the other brother, Omar, ran off along the chic Boulevard Moulay Youssef toward a private school, the American Language Center where he also blew himself up, a local cafe owner said.
Police arrested six people in the area, including one man who was found with an empty explosives belt, a police source said.
Police also said that they had arrested the man thought to be the head of the group responsible for suicide explosions on March 11 and on Tuesday.
The unnamed man, together with his deputy, was arrested in the shantytown of Sidi Moumen, on the outskirts of Casablanca, yesterday in the course of the police follow-up to Tuesday’s blasts.
Police said they had discovered where the gang was making its explosives and had also been able to identify the rest of the group and were looking for them.
On Wednesday, Moroccan police said they were hunting for some 10 possible suicide bombers, a day after three bombers blew themselves up as they were pursued by police.
Another militant died of injuries sustained when police shot him.
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 for a terror cell in the city.
Officials said all the men involved in the March 11 and this week’s incidents grew up in the Sidi Moumen area.
A police officer said yesterday’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.”
