3 Targets of Morocco Raid Blow Themselves Up

Familly members and emergency workers carry an injured women into an ambulance after a second explosion occurred in the working-class Hay Farah neighborhood of Casablanca, Tuesday April 10, 2007. Two suspected terrorists blew themselves up as police were closing in Tuesday and another suspect was shot dead by police as he prepared to detonate his explosives, authorities said. A police officer was reported killed. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar) (Abdeljalil Bounhar - AP)

CASABLANCA, Morocco, April 10 -- Acting on a tip, Moroccan police on Tuesday surrounded a building where four terrorism suspects were holed up, prompting three to flee and kill themselves with explosives. The fourth was mortally wounded by a police sharpshooter as he apparently tried to detonate a bomb.

A police officer was killed and 10 people, including a young child and a policeman, suffered injuries.

Coming weeks after a bombing at an Internet cafe, the series of explosions revived memories of five near-simultaneous suicide bombings that killed 45 people in the country's biggest city in May 2003, this North African kingdom's first brush with Islamic terrorism.

Police have since pursued an unprecedented crackdown on suspected radicals, arresting thousands of people, including some accused of working with al-Qaeda and its affiliates to plot attacks in Morocco and abroad.

The latest blasts came as Morocco prepares for parliamentary elections in September. The opposition Justice and Development Party, an Islamic group, is likely to lead the voting, analysts say.

Officials said Tuesday's police raid targeted four suspects with alleged links to the bomber who killed himself in the March 11 cybercafe blast. "These men had no ties with foreign groups," said Mokhtar Bakali, regional administrator for the Casablanca region. "All of the suspects were members of the March 11 group."

Tuesday's events started when police surrounded a four-story apartment building in a working-class neighborhood of Casablanca where the suspects were holed up, officials said.

One of the suspects fled to the roof, where he blew himself up, said a police official on the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A second man appeared to be on the verge of detonating explosives, fumbling with his clothes, when a police sniper shot him, officials said. The man, who later died of his wounds, was carrying nearly nine pounds of explosives, an Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing ministry policy.

Ayyoub Raydi, brother of the Internet cafe bomber, fled and blew himself up in the afternoon as police searched the neighborhood, officials said. Two bloody legs were seen lying in the middle of a road after that blast; police covered up the legs with pieces of cardboard. A police officer was reported killed and another seriously injured when Raydi detonated his explosives. A 7-year-old boy was hospitalized with minor injuries.

In the evening, the fourth suspect set off his explosives in the middle of a boulevard, witnesses said. Morocco's official MAP news agency reported that eight people were injured, two seriously.

Investigations into the March 11 cafe bombing led police to a suspected wider plot to attack the port in Casablanca, as well as police stations and tourist sites in Morocco. The group had amassed dozens of homemade explosives at a Casablanca apartment, officials said.

In last month's blast, Abdelfettah Raydi detonated his charge when the cybercafe's owner caught him surfing militant Islamic Web sites. He was killed and four others were injured.