Some of the 13 suicide bombers who killed 28 people in Casablanca are Moroccans linked to a little-known local radical Islamist group and came from abroad, Morocco's justice minister said today.
The bombings on Friday prompted fresh warnings from U.S.President George W. Bush that al Qaeda remained a threat.
"Some of those came from a foreign country recently.However, they are Moroccan citizens," the minister, MohamedBouzoubaa, told state television channel RTM.
Moroccan authorities had earlier singled out radical Islamists sympathetic to al Qaeda as authors of the five almost simultaneous blasts against mainly Jewish and Spanish sites.
A 14th attacker was seriously injured and is being held in police custody.
"He gave the information on his criminal accomplices and helped identify those who were involved in this operation," Bouzoubaa said.
"They are linked to some elements who are currently being tried at the Appeal Court in Casablanca. Some indications suggest that they are linked to a group calling itself Assirat al Moustaquim," he added.
Assirat al Moustaquim (The Righteous Path) is believed to be a splinter group of another radical Islamist organisation, Salafist Jihad.
Moroccan police rounded up 33 suspects yesterday,including some linked to the Salafist Jihad group. Five werestill in custody on today, government sources said.
One of Salafist Jihad's main spiritual leaders, OuldMohammed Abdelwahab Raqiqi, alias Abu Hafs, was jailed this year for inciting violence against Westerners.
The 28-year-old cleric, who was among the Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, has expressed clear support for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and hailed the al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a hero.
Morocco and Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's birthplace, were amongMuslim states listed as "most eligible for liberation" in a tape purportedly made by the al Qaeda leader and broadcast in February.
US officials say a link is plausible between al Qaeda,believed responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities, and the Morocco attacks.
The Casablanca attacks left around 100 people wounded, 14 of them seriously.
Seven foreigners - three French nationals, three Spaniards and an Italian - were killed in the second major attack within a week on an Arab kingdom with historically close ties to the United States.
Saudi Arabia was hit by multiple suicide bombings on Monday.
Bush said the attacks in Casablanca and the Saudi capitalRiyadh "demonstrate that the war against terror goes on", and offered Morocco US support in hunting the perpetrators.
A Jewish community centre, a Jewish-owned restaurant, aSpanish club and a Kuwaiti-owned hotel were among the civiliantargets on Friday.
Worst hit was the Casa de Espana private club. Clients weredining or playing bingo in a large courtyard inside the clubwhen two suicide bombers struck.
King Mohammed visited the Spanish club on Sunday. "Hismajesty has been informed how events happened," Spain'sAmbassador Fernando Arias Salgado told journalists at the site.
"He reacted as any decent person would react faced with a tragedy of this nature," he said.
In the capital Rabat, security was tight around Westernembassies. It had already been stepped up due to the US-ledwar in Iraq, which was opposed by most Muslim states.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had warned that the Iraq conflict would create "one hundred new bin Ladens".
Royal Palace spokesman Hassan Aourid called the Casablanca attacks "the work of blind international terrorism". But somecommentators were doubtful about the suspected link to al Qaeda.
"If al Qaeda is behind these raids, how come no Americaninterests were targeted?" said Aboubakr Jamai, editor of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, a weekly often critical of the government."The political dimension of the targets is not obvious."
In February three Saudi men described as members of al Qaeda and Moroccan accomplices were jailed for criminal conspiracy and other charges.
Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is the only person charged in the United States in connection with the September 11 attacks.