20 Years After the 2003 Casablanca Bombings: A Look Back

In the history of Morocco, the 2003 Casablanca bombings are considered the deadliest terrorist attack the country has known. The targets of these bombings were scattered throughout the city, including a Spanish restaurant, a Jewish community center, a hotel, and the Belgian consulate.

Some 14 suicide bombers in their twenties, all from the shantytowns of Sidi Moumen, a poor suburb of Casablanca, used homemade explosives to carry out the terrorist attacks. The assailants were reportedly associated with the Islamist groups, Sirat al-Mustaqim and Salafia Jihadia, which was a coalition of militants from Morocco and other Maghreb countries who allegedly had connections with international terrorist group al-Qaeda*.

The people of Casablanca and the entire nation of Morocco were stunned by the bombings. This was the first time the country had experienced a terrorist attack of this size. The bombings overwhelmingly affected the city and its inhabitants, resulting in increased security measures and a heightened level of caution against possible future attacks.

The attacks caused widespread panic in the city and were condemned by world leaders. In the aftermath of the bombings, Moroccan authorities arrested 2,000 people in connection with the incidents, 87 of whom were prosecuted and convicted.

In August 2003, a court sentenced four men to death for their direct involvement in the bombings, including the two suicide bombers who survived.

A former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was also suspected of involvement in the deadly attack, which came four days after a similar attack on a compound inhabited by Westerners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

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This picture taken on 17 May 2003 shows the wreckage of the terrace of the Casa de Espana restaurant in Casablanca, Morocco, after a series of blasts in the Moroccan capital.

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Officers stand outside Casablanca's Hotel Safir Farah after four explosions tore through the coastal town early in the morning of Saturday 17 May 2003.

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The scene outside restaurant Positana de la Caummunaute Juive in Casablanca, Morocco early Saturday morning, 17 May 2003.

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Two men stand guard on 17 May 2003 at the entrance of the Hotel Farah (ex-hotel Safir) which was targeted by a suicide bomber in Casablanca Friday evening.

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Members of the Jewish community gather before the damaged Jewish Community Center that was hit Friday night by an explosion. Picture taken on Saturday 17 May 2003.

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Family and friends carry the coffin of one of the 16 May suicide bombings 18 May 2003 during the funeral at the Arrahma cemetery of Casablanca.

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Women wait outside a mortuary at Averos Ibn Rochd hospital in Casablanca, Saturday, 17 May 2003.

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Simoh Mahrztouf kisses his father's grave in Alghoufrane cemetery near Sidi Moumen on 14 May 2004, a year after he was killed with 44 other people in the the 16 May 2003 attacks in Casablanca.

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Moroccan Saad Houssaini (C, in white), one of the accused of allegedly fabricating explosives used in the May 2003 blasts in Casablanca leaves the court escorted by police in Sale, near Rabat, on 3 April 2008.

Sadly, the 2003 Casablanca bombings were not an isolated incident in Morocco. The country has a long history of terrorist attacks, dating back to the Seventies, when the country was targeted by leftist groups. In the Nineties, Morocco faced a new threat in the form of Islamist extremist groups, who carried out several attacks in the country, including the 1994 Marrakech bombing, which killed five tourists.

On 28 April 2011, an al-Qaeda-linked bomb explosion at a cafe in central Jamaa el-Fna square in Marrakech, Morocco, killed 16 people and injured 20 others. The majority of the victims were foreigners, mostly from Europe.

* a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries

Twenty Years On: A Look Back at the Casablanca Bombings of 2003