MARRAKESH – An explosion killed 14 people, including foreigners, on
Thursday in a busy cafe in the Moroccan tourist destination of Marrakesh, and
authorities said the initial signs were that it was a criminal act.
The blast ripped through the second storey of a cafe overlooking Marrakesh's
Jamaa el-Fnaa square, a spot that is usually bustling with foreign tourists and
local vendors.
Officials did not say if they suspected the involvement of Islamist
militants. The militants' last big attack was a series of suicide bombings in
Morocco's commercial capital, Casablanca, in 2003 in which more than 45 people
were killed.
A Reuters photographer at the scene of the blast said he saw rescue workers
pulling dismembered bodies from the wreckage of the Argana cafe.
A witness said only one of the dead was a Moroccan national, although this
could not immediately be confirmed.
The Interior Ministry issued a statement saying the explosion killed 14
people, including an undisclosed number of foreigners, and injured another 20
people.
"Early evidence collected at the site (of the explosion) indicates that it
was a criminal act," the ministry said in the statement carried by the official
MAP news agency.
An official source had earlier told Reuters it appeared the blast was caused
by gas canisters in the cafe catching fire.
"I heard a very loud blast in the square. It occurred inside Argana cafe.
When I approached the scene, I saw shredded bodies being pulled out of the
cafe," the Reuters photographer said.
"The first floor bore the brunt of the damage while the ground floor was
almost intact. ... There are a lot of police who, with forensics, are sifting
through the debris."
The official news agency said an investigation was under way to determine the
cause of the explosion.
The Casablanca stock exchange was down 0.41 percent on news of the explosion
in Marrakesh. Before reports emerged of the blast it has been trading up 0.13
percent. Reuters
