2003 Casablanca bombings

On the evening of May 16, 2003, a coordinated series of suicide bombings struck Casablanca, Morocco. Twelve bombers, all from the Sidi Moumen slums and loyal to a network authorities termed Salafia Jihadia, detonated backpack bombs at the Casa de España restaurant, the Hotel Farah, the Jewish Alliance of Casablanca, a site near the Belgian consulate, and near an old Jewish cemetery. The attacks killed 33 victims and two police officers, along with 12 bombers, and injured more than 100 people. Although the bombers had deliberately targeted Jewish sites, no Jewish victims were killed because the attacks occurred during Shabbat, when the targeted buildings were largely empty.

The bombers emerged from a milieu of radical preachers active in Casablanca's shantytowns following the return of Moroccan veterans of the Afghan war. Investigators identified Abdelhak Bentassir, a shoemaker known as "Moul Sebbat," as the cell's self-proclaimed "national emir," who organized a pledge-of-allegiance ceremony among the bombers and served as a link to bomb-making expertise attributed to Saâd Houssaïni and Karim El Mejjati. Bentassir was arrested in Fez ten days after the attacks and died in police custody under disputed circumstances; authorities said an autopsy found he died of natural heart and liver failure, while his family disputed the timeline and circumstances of his detention. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Casablanca and Riyadh attacks in a video on June 21, 2003, and the attack was reportedly ordered by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who allegedly financed the cell.

Three surviving bombers — Mohamed Omari, Rachid Jalil, and Hassan Taoussi — were arrested within days and confessed to their roles. The investigation, led by Morocco's National Judicial Police Brigade, the Royal Gendarmerie, and the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, resulted in more than 5,200 arrests and roughly 11,000 people questioned nationwide. A trial opened on July 21, 2003, at the Court of Appeal of Casablanca against 52 defendants. On August 19, 2003, the court delivered its verdicts: Omari, Jalil, Taoussi, and recruiter Yassine Lahnech were sentenced to death; 37 others received life sentences, 17 received thirty years, and 16 received twenty years. Radical preachers found to have influenced the bombers, including Zakaria Miloudi, Mohamed Fizazi, and Hassan Kettani, received sentences ranging up to life in prison. Some detainees held during the broader investigation alleged mistreatment at the Temara interrogation center, including beatings, electric shocks, and sleep deprivation; Morocco's justice minister denied that such treatment was widespread while acknowledging possible "lapses in judgement."

The bombings prompted Morocco to enact a broadened counterterrorism law on May 28, 2003, compared by critics to the USA Patriot Act, and led to a sustained crackdown resulting in more than 900 convictions nationally by 2004. The attacks also drew attention to conditions in Casablanca's slums, prompting a government "Cities without Slums" initiative the following year. A commemorative plaque was unveiled at Mohammed V Square in Casablanca in April 2004. In 2007, further suicide bombings struck Casablanca, after which the Sidi Moumen slum where the original bombers had lived was demolished.