The probe into the carnage that claimed 41 lives including those of 13 suicide bombers homed in quickly on the banned fundamentalist Assirat al Moustaqim (The Straight Path), now feared linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
When Justice Minister Mohamed Bouzoubaa revealed that some of the bombers had recently returned home from abroad and were linked to Assirat al Moustaqim, it was the first official allusion to a Moroccan link to international militancy.
Since Friday, police have made dozens of arrests in Casablanca's Islamist milieux, complementing an investigation that has been under way for several months.
About 40 people accused of belonging to Assirat al Moustaqim and another banned organization, the Salafia Jihadia, had already been arrested.
In December, the Moroccan public first heard of Assirat al Moustaqim when 14 of its members were tried for the death by stoning of a man accused of debauchery.
The killing took place in Sidi Moumen in response to a fatwa, or religious edict, issued by the group's leader Miloudi Zakaria.
Zakaria, tried earlier in the affair, was released in April after serving a one-year prison term, only to be incarcerated again in an investigation into the activities of Salafia Jihadia, to which he is also linked, judicial sources said.
Moderate Islamic organizations, recognized and tolerated in Morocco, have hastily sought to disassociate themselves from the Casablanca attacks, including the Justice and Development Party (PJD), which last year became the main opposition force in parliament.
The rise of the PJD has been seen as a popular protest at the failure of mainstream parties to address some of the kingdom's deep-rooted problems, which include high unemployment and great disparities in wealth underscored by a proliferation of urban slums.
Nadia Yassine, the semi-official spokesperson of Morocco's largest Islamist organization, Al adl Wal Ihssane, told AFP that the attitude of some "groups of young people" who advocate violence is explained by "anger, political naivety and even illiteracy".
The organization, while not recognized, is tolerated, and condemned the attacks along with the PJD.
A first serious alarm over the presence of Islamic militant groups in Morocco arose in May last year, when police arrested three Saudi nationals accompanied by seven Moroccans suspected of belonging to an al-Qaeda "sleeper cell".
The group, suspected of planning attacks on tourist targets in Marrakesh and on NATO vessels in the Strait of Gibraltar, were sentenced in February, with the three Saudis jailed for 10 years.
Moroccan fundamentalists have up to now been implicated in incidents of aggression against people whose behavior they have deemed contrary to the tenets of Islam.
Youssef Fikri, a suspected Salafia Jihadia member jailed in Casablanca, publicly confessed in April to having killed a man for being homosexual, another for making provocative and sarcastic remarks about Islam, and a third whom he branded a "henchman" of the city government. – Sapa.
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