Five Killed in Casablanca Blasts

A police raid
on suspected militants in the Moroccan city of Casablanca has set off
gunfights and suicide bombings that have left at least five men dead.

One of the men was shot dead by police in a raid on an alleged militant hideout in a poor area of the city.

Another three suspected militants blew themselves up during the
police manhunt. A police officer also died in one of the blasts.

Three suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up on Tuesday following a police raid on a house in a Casablanca slum in which a fourth man was shot dead, police sources said.

Two men had been on the run since the dawn raid in Fida neighbourhood in which one suspected Islamist militant was killed by police and an accomplice blew himself up after he was trapped on a roof terrace, the sources and witnesses said.

"The fourth suicide bomber blew himself up when he saw there was no way for him to break through the police cordon," a senior security source told Reuters, adding that he was the last suspect in a group targeted by the raid.

Police have been looking for up to 12 suspected suicide bombers since March 11 when the alleged leader of a suicide squad detonated his explosives belt in a cybercafé to stop police arresting him, the sources added.

They said they believed the bombers had started wearing the belts all the time to stop security forces taking them alive.