Saturday, April 14, 2007

Two bombs went off today in Boulevard Moulay Youssef in central Casablanca, Morocco. Two men, reported to be brothers, blew themselves up outside and the United States Consulate and its culture center, respectively. The bombers both died and a woman, who was passing by, was injured.

An eyewitness told BBC News: “I saw a man talking to a policeman, trying to distract him I guess, while another man walked by to the consulate and blew himself up over there.”

Police sources say that the men were part of the same terror cell that police has been trying to track down since a March 11 bombing at an Internet cafe. On April 10, four suspects died after a police raid on the same group.

In the hours following the bombings, police arrested three people, and recovered another explosives belt near Kandara Hotel. A man seen throwing down the belt was among those arrested. Moroccan authorities have been downplaying a possible connection with Wednesday’s bombings in neighboring Algeria.