Morocco holds 15 al Qaeda suspects - paper

RABAT, July 10 (Reuters) Moroccan police have detained 15 al Qaeda suspected members who were plotting to blow up sensitive targets in the North African country, a newspaper reported today.

The main Arabic-language daily Al Massa, quoting security sources, said four of the 15 suspects came from al Qaeda's base in Algeria and had sneaked into Morocco to prepare ''dangerous and sophisticated'' terror attacks.

Morocco, citing an intelligence warning of an imminent attack, last week raised its security alert to the highest level and deployed more than 5,000 police and paramilitary gendarmes to guard strategic points.

Assabah, another Arabic-language, said separately that a Moroccan anti-terrorist police squad had arrested three al Qaeda suspects, who were preparing bomb attacks in Morocco.

The newspaper said the three were detained after a French intelligence tip-off that they intended to link up with other al Qaeda members from Algeria and Mauritania and carry out attacks in Morocco.

Asked to comment, an interior ministry official said: ''We are only aware of the arrest of 13 Syrians, who came from Algeria illegally to try to reach Spain. They are illegal migrants''.

But a diplomat at the Syrian embassy in Rabat said they were not aware of such arrests.

Al Massa said four of those arrested had sought to get explosives from an employee at a Casablanca explosives factory.

The Maghreb region has been on alert since al Qaeda's affiliate in North Africa, the Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb which is based in Algeria, threatened to step up its war against ''corrupt'' governments in the region and their Western allies.

Al Qaeda claimed attacks in Algeria in April, including three in Algiers on April 11 when 30 people were killed.

Three days later, two suicide bombers detonated explosive belts outside US diplomatic facilities on Casablanca, killing only themselves.

Assabah newspaper said today that al Qaeda had stepped up its efforts to hit Morocco to offset the failure of its suicide bombers in April.

REUTERS PY VV1910