CASABLANCA, May 17 (IslamOnlin.net & News Agencies) - At least 41 people were killed and scores more wounded in a string of bomb blasts that rocked Morocco's largest city Casablanca, leaving a trail of bloody carnage as the world was on alert for terror attacks.

Earlier Saturday, May 17, Moroccan authorities announced that 39 people, mostly Moroccans, were killed in a wave of bombing attacks against the Belgian consulate, the Safir Hotel, a Jewish community center, an old Jewish cemetery and a Spanish restaurant, in the country's business capital Casablanca.

"Fifteen people hurt in the attacks Friday night have died from their injuries, bringing the death toll to 39," the Casablanca prefecture was quoted by the official MAP news agency as saying.

It called the figure "almost definitive" since most of the injured have already left the hospital after having received treatment although there were "several cases still under observation."

Earlier, officials had put the death toll at least 24 dead, including ten "suicide bombers", and more than 60 injured, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"These attacks bear the hallmarks of international terrorism," Moroccan Interior Minister Mostafa Sahel told a hastily arranged press conference, adding that three Moroccan suspects, including an injured suicide bomber, had been arrested.

He said there were similarities between the attacks in Casablanca and those in Saudi Arabia on Monday, May 12, in which at least 34 people were killed.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the Casablanca attacks.

Scenes of shock and panic filled the streets early Saturday with police out in force and cordoning off affected areas.

Sahel said the terrorists' goal was to attack Morocco's democratic process and its political pluralism.

"Morocco will not be intimidated by those who choose to kill innocent people," he vowed.

A leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party condemned the bombings as "a savage terrorist crime".

"We condemn it as we condemn the perpetrators and their commanders," the group's parliamentary president Mustapha Ramid told AFP.

The bodies of two bombers were pulled out of the rubble of the Jewish center in the coastal town, witnesses told AFP.

The toll would have been much higher had the center not been hit on Friday night, after the start of the Jewish Sabbath, the witnesses said.

One or two other bombs exploded at the Casa Espana, a popular Hispanic cultural center and restaurant.

At least 18 people were believed to have been killed in that blast although little debris was visible from outside.

The main explosion was inside the center where some 100 people had been eating in the restaurant, according to an official at the center.

Ambulances were called in from surrounding areas to aid the injured, a police source said.

The same month, three Saudi nationals accused of being part of an al-Qaeda cell were sentenced to 10 years in prison for having plotted attacks against Western targets in Morocco and the Strait of Gibraltar last year.

Six Moroccan accomplices received jail terms of up to a year.

Western countries, alarmed by a huge increase in intercepted communications indicating that al-Qaeda-related attacks may be imminent, have put their citizens on alert in the Middle East, East Africa and Southeast Asia.

The United States, Australia and Britain have issued a flurry of terrorism warnings in recent days.

Fears have been made all the more real by Monday's triple bombings in Saudi Arabia, blamed on al-Qaeda, which killed 34 people at compounds housing Western nationals, officials say.

"There has been a definite increase in chatter over the past couple of weeks," said one U.S. official in Washington, referring to intercepted telephone and e-mail conversations and interrogations of terror suspects by intelligence agencies.

"We are very concerned about possible attacks," a second U.S. official said.

"I don't know if I could characterize them as 'imminent' in the sense of the next hour or day, but there are a lot of signs that something or some things are being planned and are coming, coming soon," the official said.

The officials said the intercepts were gathered not only from suspected al-Qaeda operatives but also from people believed to be affiliated with the network who either operate on their own or as part of a group that shares Osama bin Laden's anti-West agenda.

Since the beginning of this month, the U.S. State Department has released regional terrorism alerts covering the Middle East, North Africa, the Gulf and East Africa to supplement an April 21 global warning.