Morocco says Marrakesh blast a "terrorist attack"

The blast ripped through a cafe overlooking Marrakesh's Jamaa el-Fnaa square, a spot often packed with foreign tourists.

Interior Minister Taieb Cherkaoui said 14 people were killed and 23 wounded in the deadliest attack Morocco has seen since 12 suicide bombers killed 33 members of the public in coordinated strikes on the business hub Casablanca eight years ago.

"Preliminary investigation ... suggests that this was a terrorist act caused by an explosive device," the official MAP news agency quoted Cherkaoui as saying.

Security experts said the attack bore all the hallmarks of a plot by Islamist militants.

"The majority of plots are detected in their early stages because Moroccan authorities retain a very effective network of informants right down to street level," said Anna Murison of Exclusive Analysis, a consultancy.

"However, the regular recurrence of plots ... mean it is likely that a few will slip through the net," she said.

State-run 2M television put the death toll at 15 and said they were six French nationals, five Moroccans and four foreigners whose nationality it did not give.

If confirmed as the work of Islamist militants, the attack would be the first such major attack in Morocco since the Casablanca suicide bombings of 2003.

The blast is likely to hurt Morocco's tourism trade, a major source of revenue, which is already struggling to cope with the effects of the global downturn and protests that have swept north Africa.

Morocco's ruler, King Mohammed, has promised to reform the constitution to placate Moroccan protesters who have been inspired by uprisings in other part of the Arab world. But a fresh round of protests is planned for Sunday.

The cafe is in the Marrakesh medina, or old city, which is designated by the United Nation's cultural arm as a World Heritage Site. It is usually packed with stalls, story-tellers and snake-charmers seeking to attract tourists.

Last week, men claiming to be Moroccan members of al Qaeda's north African wing appeared in a video posted on YouTube threatening to attack Moroccan interests.

A masked speaker, who identified himself as Abu Abdulrahman, said the planned attacks were to avenge the detention of Islamists by Moroccan authorities.