CAIRO — Al Qaida has resumed its campaign of suicide strikes in Morocco.
On Aug. 13, an Al Qaida suicide operative tried unsuccessfully to board
a tourist bus in the North African kingdom. The attacker, carrying a natural
gas cylinder, was stopped by the bus driver and was seriously injured.
Officials said the attacker, a government engineer, was identified as
belonging to Morocco's Salfiya Jihadiya, an Al Qaida-aligned group. None of
the tourists, most of them Western, were hurt in the bombing in Meknes, Middle East Newsline reported.
The attack marked a resumption in Al Qaida suicide strikes in Morocco.
Officials said the new Al Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb has
established and directed insurgency cells against Western and tourist
targets in the kingdom.
The bomber was identified as Hisham Dokali, an engineer in the tax
office of Meknes, located in central Morocco. Officials said Dokali,
reported to be in critical condition at a military hospital, was believed to
have consulted with others before the bombing. Dokali's wife was also said
to have been detained and interrogated.
On Thursday, Morocco's media reported the arrest of four suspects in
connection to the Meknes bombing. The media said the suspects were also
engineers and graduates of a Casablanca university.
Al Qaida sought to conduct a series of suicide strikes in Casablanca
during March and April 2007. In July, Moroccan authorities were placed on
maximum alert for an impending Islamic attack on the kingdom's tourist
industry.
In neighboring Algeria, a car bomb exploded on Aug. 14 in an eastern
suburb of Algiers. The target of the car bombing was said to be Mustapha
Kertali, a former Islamic insurgent who has become a supporter of the
Algerian regime. Kertali was injured in the attack.