Morocco arrests 56 after foiling militant attacks

RABAT, Aug 31 (Reuters) Morocco today said the number of arrests it has made after cracking a militant Islamist cell that planned attacks on government targets has risen to 56, including four women, in five towns across the country.

Security services broke up the cell and seized explosives and propaganda materials in early August. The government has said the group was planning a far bigger attack than the Casablanca bombings in May 2003, which killed 45 people.

''The latest arrest was made 24 hours ago. It was a woman,'' Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa told a rare news conference.

''The group was preparing to launch attacks on tourist sites and sensitive government facilities and to kill prominent personalities,'' he said, without elaborating.

Security sources have told Reuters the group planned to blow up the Justice Ministry, military bases and hotels and to kill top ministers and foreign diplomats.

Benmoussa named the group as the Mehdi Partisans and described it as ''a Jihadist Salafist movement advocating violence to achieve its goals''.

The authorities had previously named the group as Jammaat Ansar El Mehdi (El Mehdi Support Group).

Security officials say police have broken up more than 50 radical Islamist cells, some linked to al Qaeda, and arrested more than 3,000 people since the Casablanca bombings.

Benmoussa said the Mehdi Partisans group had underlined the danger radical Islamists still pose to Morocco's security and emerging liberal democracy.

''The dismantled group of Mehdi Partisans ... underscores that today we are facing an extremist threat which aims at undermining our modern democratic project,'' he said.

While the 13 suicide bombers in the 2003 attacks were dwellers of poor slums in Casablanca, members of the Mehdi group came from the upper middle class and had contributed money to buy weapons, Benmoussa said.

''The (Mehdi) group was busted at the latest stage of its formation. It was about to start a holy war on Morocco's soil,'' he added.

The group had set up a military training camp in a rugged mountainous area of northern Morocco and had begun gathering intelligence for its ''holy war'' targets, which included planned attacks on government forces, Benmoussa said.

He urged Moroccans to back the fight against terrorism.

''The government is committed to fight terrorism with all its means within the framework of the law and respect for human rights.

That effort needs the support of all Moroccans.'' Reuters LL VV2050