MOROCCO - Apr 10 - 4 Terror Suspects Killed.

Three suspected suicide bombers blow themselves up after a police raid on a house in a Casablanca slum in which a fourth man was shot and killed. Two men went on the run after the dawn raid in the Fida neighbourhood. During the raid, one suspected Islamist militant was killed by the police and an accomplice blew himself up after being trapped on a roof terrace, the sources and witnesses said. A third suspect fled, then blew himself up as the police searched the neighbourhood for him. "The fourth suicide bomber blew himself up when he saw there was no way for him to break through the police cordon", according to a senior security source, who added that the fourth man had been the last suspect in a group sought in the raid. The police have been looking for as many as 12 suspected suicide bombers since March 11, when the alleged leader of a suicide squad detonated his explosives belt in an Internet cafe to keep the police from arresting him, the sources said. They said they believed the bombers had started wearing the belts all the time to prevent security forces from taking them alive. Residents said the police had cordoned off part of Fida, a poor working-class suburb of Morocco's economic capital, and were trying to trace other suspects who had managed to escape. The state news agency, MAP, said one of two police officers wounded when the third suspect blew himself up had died from his wounds. No one was hurt in the blast that killed the fourth suspect. MAP identified the third suspected suicide bomber as Rachidi Muhammad, 37, and said he belonged to a "terrorist cell" behind the killing of paramilitary gendarme in 2003. Hundreds of onlookers were near the house that was raided and a forensic investigation team sifted through debris after the first bomb blast. Residents said bomb disposal officers had been on hand in case the house was booby-trapped or explosives were stored there. Scuffles broke out briefly between news photographers and soldiers who kept them away from the house. Morocco has been on alert since 2003 when 13 suicide bombers killed themselves and 32 other people in central Casablanca in an attempt to punish Morocco for being a staunch ally of the US. A woman who lives in the house next to the building raided by the police, said she had been awakened by gunfire early in the morning and heard a loud blast shortly afterward. She said neighbours had told her that a young man had blown himself up on the roof after police had cornered him. "He and three or four other young men moved into a flat in the building about two months ago", she said. "They aren't from around here. They kept themselves to themselves. They dressed normally, in jeans and trainers". Another witness said he had been with some friends when a police car screeched to a halt in front of them and officers dashed into a side street. "A while later two guys ran out of a house with the police in pursuit", he said. "The police officers ordered the men to stop and one of the men shot at them. The police shot back and he fell. The other got away". Another resident said the second man had run onto the roof terrace but the police had surrounded him. "That's when he blew himself up. The terrace was gutted and I saw body parts scattered around". Security officials said last month that the police had foiled a plot by Islamist militants to blow up foreign ships at the port of Casablanca and hotels in Marrakesh and Agadir. The police had arrested more than 40 people, most of them living in Casablanca's slums, they said. Three of those arrested lived in a rented house in a slum where the police seized explosives. Government officials said the suspected bombers and the network they belonged to were part of "home-grown terrorism" inspired by Islamist Jihadism from abroad, including Al Qaeda.