33 held for Morocco blasts

Moroccan Interior Minister Al Mustapha Sahel said the investigation ‘‘points to a group that has been arrested recently,’’ an apparent reference to Djihad Salafist.

The Minister told state-run on 2M Television that police had identified the bodies of seven of the 14-strong cell believed to have carried out the five almost simultaneous attacks on Friday night.

The attacks, the first in Morocco since two Spanish tourists were gunned down in a Marrakech hotel in 1995, left around 100 people wounded and shattered Morocco’s image as a relatively stable country and safe tourist destination.

A Jewish community centre, a Jewish-owned restaurant and a Spanish club were among the targets in Friday’s night of death and destruction in a city immortalised in the 1942 romantic Hollywood film Casablanca.

Three French nationals, two Spaniards and an Italian were reported killed in the second major attack within a week on an Arab kingdom with historically close ties to the US. Saudi Arabia was hit by multiple suicide bombings on Monday. Bush said the attacks in Casablanca and the Saudi capital Riyadh ‘‘demonstrate that the war against terror goes on’’, and offered Morocco US support to track down the perpetrators.

In Rabat, security was heavy around Western embassies but remained at levels imposed after the start of the US-led war in Iraq.

US Officials said a link between al Qaeda and the Morocco attacks was plausible. (Reuters)