A place suicide bombers call home
2005-05-16 11:28
Casablanca - Women lug jugs of water from a common tap as children play in the narrow and winding alleys. But it is the searing gazes of jobless young men lounging outside corrugated-metal roof shacks that best tell the story of Carriere Thomas, a squalid shantytown in the suburbs of Casablanca.
The encampment was home to 11 of 13 suicide bombers who detonated explosives-laden backpacks at five targets in Casablanca the night of May 16 2003 — killing 32 bystanders.
Residents say the settlement, with 50 000 mostly illiterate and unemployed residents, was easy prey for recruiters from the Islamic extremist movement Salafiyah Jihadiya back then — and remains so, two years later.
New housing and promised government improvements have mostly failed to materialise.
"People have no education, so the young get attracted to their ideology," said Yousef Jalil, 23, whose brother, Rachid, was one of the recruits. But before setting off his explosives, Rachid panicked and fled the scene. He's now on death row. Two others also changed their minds just before attacking.
Rachid, 29, had worked as a butcher but only had an elementary school education. His cousin, Mohammed El Arbaoui, also a butcher, went through with the attack and blew himself up, one day before his 22nd birthday.
Recruits threatened, pressurised to attack
Now both families insist the recruiters, also residents of the shantytown, had threatened to harm their families if the young men refused to take part.
During their trial, Jalil, Mohammed El Omari, 25, and Yassine Lahnech, 24 — the three men who changed their minds — claimed they had been threatened by another bomber.
The three men and a fourth, Hassan Taousi, 26, considered to be a leading member of Salafiya Jihadiya, all received death sentences.
Intelligence officials close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the main recruiter was a 30-year-old grocer named Abdelrazaq Rtiwi.
One official described him as "just an ordinary guy", who unlike many Islamic mujahedeen militants, had not fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya, and indeed may never have left the Casablanca suburb of Sidi Moumen.
Rtiwi is believed to have recruited the suicide bombers, who almost certainly did not know the top leader, Moul Sebat, from the city of Fez to the north, another official said. Sebat died in police custody apparently from hepatitis before he was to go on trial, the officials said.
The bombers' targets included the upscale Casa de Espana, a Spanish social club; the Israelite Community Circle and an old Jewish cemetery; a major downtown hotel and the Positano restaurant owned by a French Jew of Moroccan origin.
Panic attack
But El Omari panicked when one of his comrades blew himself up, and ran away. Jalil, too, got scared, left his backpack between two car parks in front of the restaurant and fled, as did Lahnech.
Three hours after the blasts, Jalil went home. "He said nothing to me," recalled his mother Aicha Arbawi, 65, her front teeth missing. But he told his 23-year-old brother, Yousef, he was afraid and had been forced to go along because of threats.
Police broke into the home 48 hours after the blast and took Jalil away.
"He's innocent. He didn't kill anyone," his mother said, waving her hands. "The sentence they passed on him was too harsh."
His mother says a defence attorney has told them there is nothing he can do to help their son. She contends her son showed no signs of extremism before the blast.
But the family of his cousin, Mohammed El Arbaoui, said their son, who before never prayed, grew a beard and started going to the mosque about a year and a half before the bombings.
The young men in Carriere Thomas live only a few kilometres from the glitter of Casablanca — Morocco's commercial capital — and only a stone's throw from villas in affluent areas.
Television shows them what they are missing. But there's little change on the ground.
Empty government promises, financial struggles
After the bombings, the government promised steps to ease unemployment and tackle illiteracy and to replace shantytowns with proper housing.
Some new housing is under construction, according to officials, and new roads are being built and electricity expanded. The police also maintain a heavier presence.
But only 20% of residents have moved into new homes, say government officials.
Many who live in the shantytowns say they cannot afford the new apartments, when they are available, even with their heavily subsidised prices.
"They are demanding too much money that we cannot afford," said Abdelkader El Arbaoui, father of suicide bomber Mohammed El Arbaoui.
He said a down payment of 30 000 dirhams (R 21,633.34) was required, followed by 200 000 dirhams (R 144,023.80) to be paid in instalment. He could barely feed his family, he said.
His dead son, who made about 300 dirhams a week (about R 215.86), was the main provider for the family of five.
He said he was not angry with his son for having killed so many innocent people. But he was "furious with those who forced him to do it. He was a young, simple, uneducated man. He didn't know what he was doing," he said.
"If he had brains he wouldn't have chosen this path," said his mother Amna, weeping.
"Life is too difficult here. We have no money," said her 21-year-old son, Mustafa, unemployed and uneducated.
- AP