RABAT – Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) denied Saturday it
was involved in a bomb attack on a cafe in Marrakesh last week that killed 17
people including eight French nationals.
Police in Morocco arrested three people Thursday for the April 28 attack and
said the chief suspect was "loyal" to al Qaeda. A Swiss woman died of her
injuries Friday, Swiss authorities said, bringing the total killed in the attack
to 17.
AQIM said it was not behind the killings but urged Moroccan Muslims "to
liberate their oppressed, jailed brothers and to topple the criminal regime," in
a presumed reference to King Mohammed and his government.
"We deny involvement in the bombing and assure that we have nothing to do
with it, neither up close nor from afar," said a statement carried by the
Nouakchott Info Agency in Mauritania.
"Although hitting Jews and Crusaders and targeting their interests are among
our priorities, which we urge Muslims to act upon and which we seeks to carry
out, we choose the right moment and place," said the statement.
AQIM is a pan-Maghreb jihadist organization that has taken responsibility for
a number of attacks, particularly in Algeria. It has sent fighters to Iraq and
vowed to attack Western targets, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign
Relations website.
The group, which previously called itself the Salafist Group for Preaching
and Combat, says it is the local franchise of al Qaeda.
Moroccan authorities said the chief suspect disguised himself as a
guitar-carrying hippie when he planted two bombs in a popular tourist cafe.
The bombs took six months to construct and were detonated by remote control
using a cell phone, authorities said. Reuters
