Moroccan King visits the wounded

CASABLANCA, May 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The investigation into last week's multiple bombings in Casablanca has reached a watershed with the identification of all 14 attackers and their linkage to "international terrorism," according to Morocco’s interior minister.

"The arrest of the two terrorists who are still living enabled remarkable advances in terms of intelligence," Mustapha Sahel told state television late Monday, May 19, revealing that 12 assailants, not 13 as initially reported, had died during their five-pronged assault on Friday, May 16, while two survived.

One was arrested immediately after the attacks which claimed 28 innocent lives, while the other was picked up Sunday, May 18, Sahel was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

Eight bombers had been identified as of early Monday, all said to be coming out of the same impoverished suburb of Sidi Moumen southeast of Morocco’s economic capital.

Sahel thanked the security services of "friendly countries" -- France and Spain -- which had assisted in the identification with teams of 14 and six forensic experts, respectively.

The appearance of the minister on TV is in line with the policy of King Mohammed of promoting transparency over the attacks, the BBC News Online reported.

The king himself has been visiting some of the scores of people wounded in hospital. Fourteen of them are still in a serious condition.

International Connections

The Moroccan interior minister said investigators could "confirm our presumptions on the connection with international terrorism" in the nearly simultaneous attacks on Jewish and foreign targets -- a profile associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

Communication Minister Nabil Benabdellah had earlier deemed it "premature" to link the attacks, in which three Frenchmen, two Spaniards and an Italian were killed, specifically to al-Qaeda.

An international connection was first mooted by Justice Minister Mohamed Bouzoubaa, who revealed that the bombers had recently returned home to Morocco from an unnamed foreign state.

The carnage in Casablanca came four days after a triple bombing in Riyadh and amid fears that a resurgent al-Qaeda was planning fresh strikes in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Moroccan authorities said that some of the bombers had had connections with the radical Assirat el Moustaqim group, which for the past year has been trying to enforce its strict interpretation of Islam through, at times, violent means.

Observers have expressed Sidi Moumen is the fiefdom of the banned Assirat el Moustaqim (The Straight Path, several members of which were sentenced in January to up to 20 years in prison for stoning a man to death under a religious "fatwa", or decree.

Clear Indication

"Our assessment that al-Qaeda and similar organizations are still active has been proved," Schily

In Berlin, German Interior Minister Otto Schily said Sunday that the style of the attacks, here and in Saudi Arabia, were a "clear indication" of al-Qaeda's hand.

"Our assessment that al-Qaeda and similar organizations are still active has been proved right in a horrific way," the minister said.

Germany's federal intelligence service, BND, warned that al-Qaeda had reorganized and could be planning more attacks in Africa, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
A BND report quoted by the German press said a new generation of militants were now leading al-Qaeda, which carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and that it had found new means of financing its operations.

Morocco, a staunch U.S. ally although it opposed the invasion of  Iraq, was cited among a list of "apostate" Muslim nations in a cassette message attributed to bin Laden released in February.

Many suspected members of radical groups have been arrested in Morocco in recent months, and the U.S. officials have praised Rabat's cooperation in exchanging intelligence and actively pursuing individuals believed to be associated with al-Qaeda.

The Moroccan government has come under fire from Islamic groups for delaying municipal elections due to be held in June, a move the press linked to the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalists in the north African country.

In elections last year, an Islamic movement tripled its parliamentary presence to become a dominant opposition voice.

The rise of the Party for Justice and Development (PJD) has been seen as a popular protest at the failure of mainstream parties to address some of the kingdom's deep-rooted problems, which include high unemployment and great disparities in wealth underscored by a proliferation of urban slums.

Moderate Islamic organizations, recognized and tolerated in Morocco, have hastily sought to disassociate themselves from the Casablanca attacks, including the PJD.

A first serious alarm over the presence of Islamic militant groups in Morocco arose in May last year, when police arrested three Saudi nationals accompanied by seven Moroccans suspected of belonging to an al-Qaeda "sleeper cell".

The group, suspected of planning attacks on tourist targets in Marrakesh and on NATO vessels in the Strait of Gibraltar, were sentenced in February, with the three Saudis jailed for 10 years.