Morocco Internet cafe terrorist explosion

(Update here: 11th March Suicide bombers blow themselves up)

Casablanca, Morocco. Moroccans again found themselves the victims of terrorism on Sunday night when a man blew himself up with explosives in an internet café in Casablanca after he was prevented from looking at terrorist websites by the owners.

The man, identified as Abderrahman Achourdied died and his companion Yusuf Khoudri was injured and hospitalised. The dead man's companion reportedly tried to run away but was arrested and also found to have explosives, security sources said. Three others,including the cybercafé owner’s son, were injured in the blast.

Apparently the two men entered the cafe at 10 pm and sought access to terrorist sites. When the owner’s son forbade them from doing so, one of the men was blown up by explosives he was wearing.

A series of suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca in 2003. Most of the bombers came from the Sidi Moumen slum.

Since then, Morocco has made hundreds of terrorist related arrests and has been scouring the country for Islamic extremists.

"This is an incentive to pursue the war on terrorism without respite," Communication Minister Nabil Benabdallah told Reuters, adding the incident was "in the framework of horrendous terrorist acts in Morocco and other Maghreb countries."

Mohamed Dariff, Professor of Political Science at University Hassan II in Mohamadia and a specialist in Islamist insurgent groups said"It was preparation for an attack. We see that the strategy of Islamic groups in Morocco hasn't changed -- it's the same as it was in May 2003, of men setting off explosives."

Reports suggest that the dead man had visted the cybercafe before and accessed terrorist websites there previously but on this occassion the owner tried to stop him. There may be two possibble explanations for what has happened.
First that the men had some forwarning that the owner might try to stop them accessing the sites and that they had gone armed with the explosives because of this. The second, and more worrying explanation, is that the men were obtaining instructions through the websites that they were accessing and that they were armed with explosives in preparation for committing a terrorist event at some other undisclosed location. For Morroccans the concern must be that the second of these explanations sounds the more plausable. If this is true then there may be concerns that further incidents are to be expected in Morocco.

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