Christians Under Attack

  “Only the two bombers were killed,” a police source said of the mid-morning attack in the port city. Witnesses said the first blast happened about six metres (yards) from the US cultural centre and the second went off about 60 metres away from the nearby US consulate. Police cordoned off the area and were hunting for a third man seen running from the scene who was suspected to also be rigged with explosives on a suicide mission, witnesses said. A senior police source said the bombers clearly intended to attack the US buildings, indicating they were the first targeted suicide bombings of a recent series of blasts in the city. On Tuesday three suicide bombers killed themselves in Casablanca after police raided a safe house and shot dead a fourth bomber, setting off their explosives so as not to be taken alive by police who were on their tail. “There is no doubt they aimed at the US targets. They made that statement with their own bodies,” the source said of Saturday’s explosions. He said the two could not get closer to the two buildings because of security fortifications. The government said the bombers were linked to a ring dismantled last month, which included suicide bombers who planned to blow up foreign ships docking at Casablanca’s port and hotels in Morocco’s main tourist cities. The Rabat government insists that bombers were “home-grown” militants with no links to international terror networks.

The killings of the suicide bombers followed bombings in neighbouring Algeria this week where 33 people were killed in attacks claimed by an Islamist armed group known as the Al Qaeda Organisation on the Islamic Maghreb.

POSTED BY /http://www.khaleejtimes.com