Moroccan authorities linked the Casablanca attacks to Al-Qaeda. Their country and Saudi Arabia, Osama Bin Laden's birthplace, were among Muslim states listed as "most eligible for liberation" in a tape purportedly made by Al-Qaeda's leader and broadcast last February. US officials also believe that there may be a link between the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and the Moroccan bombings. US President George Bush said the attacks in Casablanca and Riyadh "demonstrate that the war against terror goes on".
In the Moroccan capital, Rabat, security was unusually tight around Western embassies. It had previously been stepped up during the US-British war on Iraq, which was opposed by most Arab states. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had warned that the Iraq conflict would create "one hundred new Bin Ladens". If a link between the Casablanca attacks and Al-Qaeda is established, Mubarak's warning would prove prophetic; a wake-up call for those asserting that Al-Qaeda is a spent force. Terrorism analysts now think that the renewed activities of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Chechnya were only a prelude to those in the Middle East and other parts of the world.
Toby Dodge, an Arab expert at Britain's Warwick University, said: "For those thinking of supporting Al-Qaeda, the American invasion of Iraq proved their worst fears of what they see as a dominant power with possibly limitless ambitions." He added that the resentment caused by the war to topple Saddam Hussein might have brought Al-Qaeda new recruits and funding at a time when Moslems were enraged by US backing for Israel.
Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle East program at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs, said Al-Qaeda might have kept its powder dry during the Iraq conflict to avoid giving the impression it was defending Saddam Hussein. "The US-British invasion of Iraq served Al-Qaeda's purposes by inflaming Moslem sentiments," she said, but also suggested the surge of violence could backfire if it hurts the livelihood of Moslems in Morocco and elsewhere.
Some commentators in Morocco are doubtful about the suspected link to Al-Qaeda. "If Al-Qaeda is behind the raids, how is it that no American interests were targeted?" asked Abu Bakr Jamai, editor of the Casablanca-based Le Journale Hebdomadaire. Jamai might have a point as the five almost simultaneous blasts were aimed chiefly at Jewish and Spanish targets.
The Moroccan authorities held radical Islamists responsible for the attacks, asserting that the Friday night bombers are connected with some persons currently being tried at the Court of Appeal in Casablanca. Some indications suggest they are linked to a group calling itself Assirat Al-Moustaquim (The Righteous Path). This illegal underground organization is believed to be a splinter group of another radical Islamist movement, Salafia Jihadia. One of the spiritual leaders of this group, Abdel-Wahab Raqiqi, alias Abu Hafs, was jailed this year for inciting violence against Westerners. Abu Hafs, a 28-year-old cleric who was among the Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, had expressed clear support for the 11th September attacks and hailed Osama Bin Laden as a hero.
When the suicide bombers struck Morocco's business hub last Friday, they shattered the kingdom's image as a safe tourist destination and dealt a fresh blow to an economy vulnerable to fears of terrorism. Tourism is Morocco's second largest source of revenue, employing more than 600,000 people. The transport and handicraft industries are closely tied to tourism, a sector the Government has earmarked for massive development. Morocco wants to quadruple the number of foreign visitors to 10 million by 2010 and has sought tenders for five seaside resorts as part of an ambitious US $4.2 billion project. But a senior fund manager said Friday night's attacks meant investors would now question the country's stability. "Morocco's image as a rare haven of religious co-existence suffered a great deal from these attacks. The authorities must focus their efforts on restoring this image, because it has been our main asset," he said. Amine Boughaleb, head of Partners Hotels, said Morocco needed to learn from others hit by terrorist attacks. "We should do what Egypt did earlier after the Luxor shooting incident," he said. Egypt appointed Western consultants to restore its image as a safe tourist destination after Moslem militants massacred 58 foreign tourists in November 1997.
Morocco's tourism revenue plunged almost 19% last year in the aftermath of the 11th September 2001 attacks, which triggered a decline in international air travel. But the fall was nothing in comparison to the 80% drop in revenues after the 1991 Gulf war. Friday's bombing came like a thunderbolt to a nation that always considered itself a tolerant society where foreigners are welcome. For the time being, Moroccans are still in shock. They never expected terrorism to strike their own country. Now that it has happened, they have to live with this reality and deal with the consequences.
