On April 28, 2011, at 11:50 a.m., two homemade pressure cooker bombs hidden inside a backpack detonated at the Argana Cafe in Jemaa el-Fnaa square in Marrakesh, Morocco. The attack killed 17 people and injured 25, four seriously. Fourteen victims died at the scene, and three more died of their injuries the following day. Many of those killed were tourists, including a group of French students. The dead included eight French nationals (among them a ten-year-old girl), an Israeli-Canadian woman and her Moroccan husband, another Moroccan citizen, a British man, a Dutchman, two Swiss citizens, a Portuguese national, and a Canadian. Among the injured was Russian computer hacker Roman Seleznev, part of whose skull was blown off in the blast. Fourteen injured people were hospitalized, and four were repatriated to their home countries the day after the attack.
The bombing was carried out by Adil El-Atmani, a 25-year-old shoe salesman, who planted and detonated the devices. He was arrested six days later after a SIM card registered under his name was found among the bomb remnants. During questioning, he reportedly said he had learned bomb-making from the internet. A letter addressed to the French government, found on his laptop, demanded the withdrawal of French troops from the Middle East and threatened to "attack targets in the heart of France" if the demand was not met within twenty days of the attack. El-Atmani pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), though the group denied involvement in the bombing. Morocco publicly blamed AQIM, an organization that has waged an insurgent campaign since 2002, but AQIM denied responsibility.
El-Atmani was sentenced to death for the attack by an anti-terrorism court in Salé. He is reported to be awaiting execution at Moul El Bergui central prison in Safi and was placed in solitary confinement in 2017 after allegedly attempting to kill his cellmate.
On October 28, 2011, in a court in Rabat, a second defendant, Adel al-Othmani, was sentenced to death for his role in the bombing. Another defendant, Hakim Dah, received a life sentence. Four additional defendants were given four-year sentences, and three others received two-year sentences for their roles in the case. The defendants said the case against them relied on confessions obtained through torture and lacked hard evidence.
The bombing drew international condemnation, including statements from the presidents of Armenia and France, the French foreign minister, the German government, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called it a "cowardly attack."
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