Killer blasts in Casablanca after al Qaeda warnings

2.30pm

UPDATE - Bombers struck in Casablanca overnight, killing at least 20 people in Morocco's commercial capital, just hours after United States President George Bush sounded a terror warning of "killers on the loose".

The Casablanca blasts followed suicide attacks on Monday in the Saudi capital Riyadh in which bombers killed 34 people in expatriate housing compounds and warnings that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group was poised to strike again.

A day after Britain ordered a halt to airliner flights to and from Kenya, the Kenyan government said there had been a specific al Qaeda threat to British Airways planes flying into Nairobi.

Britain later warned its citizens of a "clear terrorist threat" in six neighbouring East African countries.

Friday night's four bomb blasts in Casablanca hit Jewish and Spanish targets and damaged the Belgian consulate, Morocco's official agency MAP said. Three of the blasts were car bombs.

MAP said at least 20 people had been killed. "There are body parts all over the place," a Moroccan journalist told the BBC of the scene at the Spanish cultural centre.

Earlier on Friday, Bush had said the bloody suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia, in which eight Americans were among the dead, should make the world sit up and take notice.

"There are killers on the loose," the president said as terror alerts spread across the world.

"It is certainly a wake-up call to many that the war on terror continues, that we've still got a big task to protect the American people and others who love freedom from the designs and the will of these purveyors of hate," he told reporters.

"It's dangerous in the world, and it's dangerous inside Saudi Arabia, and it's dangerous so long as al Qaeda continues to operate," he said.

A United States intelligence official said "chatter" among terror suspects picked up by US eavesdropping appeared to be "more consistent, more repetitive" about another attack than it was before the Saudi bombings, which hit three housing compounds.

The Bush administration, which scorns suggestions it was distracted from its war on terror by invading Iraq, maintained it had inflicted serious setbacks on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, the group blamed for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said during a visit to Bosnia: "No one has pretended that al Qaeda is dead, but I think there's no question that over the last several months it has suffered some very serious blows and we have arrested some very important, key al Qaeda figures."

The latest terror alerts to ring out across the world included Britain's ban on flights to and from Kenya and warnings about dangers elsewhere in Africa and Southeast Asia,

Countries with money-spinning tourist resorts accused Britain of over-reacting and the United States of being "afraid of its own shadow". Others were convinced al Qaeda was planning more assaults on Western targets.

Britain stepped up alerts to its citizens after Thursday's Kenya flight ban, warning of a "clear terrorist threat" in six neighbouring East African states -- Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.

The United States also warned its citizens of a "credible threat" of attacks in the region.

Kenya's Security Minister Chris Murungaru said there had been a specific al Qaeda threat against British Airways planes flying into Nairobi. Britain said this was incorrect. Last November, an Israeli airliner was targeted by a surface-to-air missile as it left Kenya on the same day a hotel was bombed.

Other airlines were still operating, but Kenyans were dismayed at Britain's ban affecting their country -- scene of past terror attacks -- fearing the potential impact on an economy strongly reliant on tourism.

Security at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi was increased on Friday. Police and paramilitary units extended patrols and all vehicles were searched.

This week, Kenya reported sightings in the region of al Qaeda suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, accused of masterminding the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in which 214 died and last November's bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad mocked the United States for issuing travel warnings, including advice to its citizens not to visit his predominantly Muslim country.

"This is because they felt guilty as they have committed all sorts of actions like killing and oppressing others, and as such they're afraid of their own shadow," Mahathir said.

A senior official in Pakistan, hit by multiple bombings at Western-branded petrol stations in Karachi on Thursday, said recent attacks might be linked.

"We suspect there could be a connection between the Karachi attacks and the terrorist strikes in Saudi Arabia," said Aftab Sheikh, head of Karachi's provincial interior ministry.

While the Pakistan attacks caused only minor injuries, the bombings in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter which has been a strategic US ally, were perhaps the most clearly targeted at US interests since the September 11 assaults.

Senior Saudi official Adel Al-Jubeir said the Riyadh bombings were also a "massive jolt" to Saudi Arabia -- birthplace of bin Laden and most of the September 11 attackers.

Bin Laden is hostile to the Saudi royal family's close ties to the United States. The kingdom was redoubling efforts to beef up security and crack down on al Qaeda extremists, Bush said.

The United States said it had received intelligence of a possible attack on foreign residential compounds in Jeddah, close to the US consulate and King Fahd's summer palace.

Lebanon said on Thursday it had smashed a plot to attack the US embassy in Beirut.

David Crane, head of Sierra Leone's UN-backed war crimes court, said there was evidence al Qaeda was operating freely in West Africa and that it was dealing in "conflict diamonds" under the protection of Liberian President Charles Taylor.

"This is a place where they come to relax because no one is bothering them and I am talking about all of West Africa," he said.

Australia and New Zealand warned nationals to be on guard in Southeast Asia, a region haunted by last year's Bali bombings which killed more than 200 people. Jemaah Islamiah, a radical Muslim group linked to al Qaeda, was blamed.

The Australian government urged extreme caution in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor and Brunei.

"We continue to receive reports that terrorist elements in the region are planning attacks," it said.

- REUTERS