Bomb Strikes Moroccan Cafe, Killing Mostly Foreigners

The bombing was timed to maximize fatalities in one of North Africa’s most popular tourist destinations, striking the city of Marrakesh as crowds sat down for lunch. The attack appeared to be the work of a suicide bomber, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility, according to a senior intelligence official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

News agencies reported that at least 3 Moroccans and 10 foreigners, including several French citizens, were among the dead.

The explosion blew out the front and the roof of the Argana restaurant, in Djemma el Fna square, a public space in the heart of Morocco’s cultural capital that is regularly packed with vendors and tourists. The crowds filling the square on Thursday as the tourist season began were knocked back, then frozen in shock from the blast and then the scene as ambulances and the police rushed in.

“There was a huge bang,” one tourist in the square, Andy Birnie of London, told The Associated Press. “There was debris raining down from the sky. Hundreds of people were running in panic, some towards the cafe, some away from the square.”

Images from the square showed the devastation of the attack: the cafe floor splattered with blood, a body beneath a blanket, rubble blown out into the plaza, which was packed with people surveying the destruction.

The bombing was as deadly as it was perplexing. Although it bore the hallmarks of radical Islamists, Marwan Shehadeh, an expert in such movements, said he would not have expected Islamists to attack because the government recently gave in to some of their demands and released some militant leaders. But he also said that the attack on civilians was inconsistent with the work of a separatist movement, Polisario, in Western Sahara, which has focused over the years on government targets.

However, Mansouria Mokhefi, who heads the Middle East and Maghreb program at the French Institute for International Relations, said it was possible that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the network’s North African affiliate, might have felt compelled to attack “as a way of reminding people that they still exist” at a time when secular protesters are dominating the world news. The official Moroccan news agency said that King Mohammed VI sent his condolences to the families of the dead and offered to pay for burials. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France issued a statement condemning the bombing, which he called a terrorist attack.

Though Morocco has remained relatively calm, especially when compared with the civil war racking Libya, it, too, has festering domestic conflicts. It has struggled in recent years against the spreading reach of the Qaeda-aligned terrorists operating in North Africa. In 2003, 33 people were killed in five simultaneous bombings attributed to radical Islamists.

And the separatist movement in Western Sahara to the south, which has been aided by Algeria and Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, is decades-old.

Like other North African nations, Morocco has been concerned about the possible spillover from the violence and chaos in Libya, worrying that militants could get hold of weapons more easily.

And in recent months, like much of the region, the country has seen increased calls for democratic reform.

The king is relatively popular, having pushed for some political and economic liberalization and increased women’s rights since taking power 11 years ago when his father died. Still, the king continues to wield absolute authority on all political matters.

As the Arab Spring rolled out, he responded to protests in Morocco with promises to meet many of demonstrators’ core demands for change, including allowing for a more representative Parliament and an elected prime minister. But he has yet to deliver.

Now Thursday’s attack threatens to stress the nation’s already troubled economy and its roughly $8 billion tourism industry. More than nine million people visited the country last year, according to statistics from the state news agency.

Mr. Shehadeh, the expert in Islamic extremism, raised the prospect that the government would point to the violence as a reason to delay its promised reforms — a move that officials have not themselves raised.

Ma?a de la Baume contributed reporting from Paris, and J. David Goodman from New York.

 

Obama Makes His Case in Mostly Friendly Territory

 

From three fund-raisers on Wednesday and Thursday morning in San Francisco to three more later Thursday here among the Hollywood set, Mr. Obama made the case for his achievements, acknowledged the setbacks, faced a few hecklers and raked in millions of dollars for the Democratic Party. Contributions ranged from $25 to the legal maximum of $35,800.

Especially in Hollywood, interest in Mr. Obama has waned little, people here say, despite pockets of frustration over matters including the war in Afghanistan, the failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and his resistance to endorsing same-sex marriage.

“What’s the alternative? There is none. Hollywood wants Obama re-elected, it’s as simple as that,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic consultant in California. “East Coast reporters keep suggesting to me that Hollywood is unhappy with the president. Based on what? I see no evidence of that.”

Mr. Obama’s three events in Los Angeles included a fund-raising dinner and another event at Sony Pictures Studios and a dinner afterward at the restaurant Tavern. The two dinners were expected to draw a combined 100 people paying $35,800 each, while about 2,500 people paid at least $100 to attend the larger rally at the Sony back lot featuring the Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, according to Democratic officials.

All money goes to the Obama Victory Fund; of the $35,800, $5,000 goes to Mr. Obama’s own campaign and the rest to the national party.?

A Sony representative said the company had rented the space to the Democratic National Committee. Organizers of the dinner included Jamie Lynton, wife of Michael Lynton, the chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and attendees included Amy Pascal, Sony’s co-chairwoman, and the philanthropist Eli Broad. The co-chairmen included Ken Solomon, chief executive of the Tennis Channel; John Emerson of Capital Group; and Andy Spahn, a political consultant and former DreamWorks executive.

Much as in the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton was a favorite of the entertainment crowd, the rivalry among its competitive players for proximity to the president remains intense. And Mr. Obama has come far less frequently than Mr. Clinton, making dinners with him all the hotter a commodity.

Two people familiar with the planning for the Sony events said it caused some consternation among those who had already been organizing the dinner at the Tavern, including two of the founders of DreamWorks, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who were prominent in the 2008 Obama election effort.

Yet the high-priced 60-person dinner sold out quickly. Among other attendees were Steven Spielberg, another DreamWorks founder, and actors George Clooney Tom Hanks, wife Rita Wilson and Will Ferrell.

At a fund-raising dinner for about 200 in San Francisco on Wednesday, the luxury cars outside the home of Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce.com, included a Jaguar with the license plate “MR44FAN.” Mr. Obama is the 44th president.

As he would do again at a breakfast fund-raiser the next morning in San Francisco at the St. Regis Hotel, Mr. Obama acknowledged that for many the high hopes he had excited in 2008 had not been fulfilled, or he had frustrated them by his compromises with Republicans.

But he made a case for his achievements — some of the largest spending “investments” ever in education, transportation, infrastructure and clean-energy industries; a health care law, even if it is not the single-payer, government-run system many liberals wanted; repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law; and the naming of two women to the Supreme Court, including the first Hispanic-American.

Later, at a larger and lower-priced fund-raiser at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, Mr. Obama recalled that he had warned supporters on election night in Chicago: “I said we may not get there in one year.? We may not even get there in one term.”

But when he continued by saying, “Our work is not finished,” an audience member yelled out “Gay marriage!”?When he said, “We didn’t get everything exactly the way we had planned,” someone yelled “Health care!” and another, “Single-payer!”

Mr. Obama took it in stride: “See there? Case in point, right? All right — see, I knew I’d open up this can of worms.”

But the more bizarre protest came at the St. Regis breakfast. Soon after Mr. Obama began speaking to about 150 people who had paid up to $35,800, a woman stood and led her table of 10 in a song. The chorus: “We paid our dues, where’s our change?”

They complained mainly of the detention of Pvt. Bradley Manning on suspicion of having leaked classified material to the WikiLeaks Web site. But they also sang, “We’ll vote for you in 2012. Yes, that’s true. Look at the Republicans — what else can we do?”

“That was a nice song,” Mr. Obama said. The lead singer and two others left and Mr. Obama continued speaking, once again conceding his setbacks but recounting his achievements. And the seven who remained stood with everyone else for an ovation when he finished.