Al-Qaeda Runs Into Rage In Morocco

Thousands marched through Morocco’s biggest city today to protest al Qaida’s decision to kill two Moroccan hostages in Iraq.Holding banners and chanting “Muslims are brothers. A Muslim does not kill his brother” and ‘“Yes’ to freedom, ‘No’ to terrorism and barbarity”, the protesters marched through Casablanca, a city of 6 million and Morocco’s financial capital. Al Qaida has said it decided to kill the Moroccan embassy employees, Abderrahim Boualem and Abdelkrim al Mouhafidi, because of Morocco’s support for the US-backed Iraqi government. Top Moroccan officials, ministers, pro-government and Opposition party leaders and trade unions and rights groups, led the protest to put pressures on al Qaida to free the two men. Morocco’s influential organisation of Islamic schol- ars, known as the High Council of the Ulema and the Councils of Ulema in the Moroc-can Kingdom, dismissed al Qaida’s argument that its verdict to kill the two embassy employees was “God’s judgment”.