Two suspected Islamist militants were killed Tuesday when being chased by police in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, police sources said. One of the suspects was fired at by police when he was about to detonate an explosives belt he was wearing. The man, who was identified as Mohammed Mentala, died at hospital, dpa reported. The other suspect blew himself up when police were about to catch him. He was not immediately identified. Police were searching for a third suspect. The three were in a flat which was raided by police in the early morning hours in the El Fida working-class neighbourhood. They fled on foot and were pursued by police. The three were believed to belong to an Islamist cell linked with a suicide bombing at a Casablanca internet cafe a month ago. A man had blown himself up, apparently accidentally, after quarrelling with the cafe manager's son. The blast injured four people. Thirty-one people have been detained since then on charges of belonging to an Islamist cell which planned attacks against hotels and other touristic targets. Mentala had been wanted since 2003, when suicide bombers targeted Western and Jewish buildings in Casablanca. Forty-five people, including 12 bombers, were killed in the May 16 coordinated attacks. Mentala was not suspected of participation in the Casablanca bombings, but of planning to carry out attacks three months later in Marrakesh. The 31-year-old unmarried mechanic lived in a Casablanca slum. Police has been on alert for weeks after warnings from foreign security services that violent radicals were targeting the liberal Muslim country, one of the main allies of the West in the region. Islamist hotbeds include low-income neighbourhoods in Casablanca, which has received large numbers of unemployed young people from rural areas. Moroccan Islamists are also believed to have been involved in the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people in the Spanish capital in March 2004. Twenty-nine mainly Moroccan suspects are currently on trial.
