Terrorism in Marrakech

Marrackech is Morocco's most popular tourist destination, and its central Djemaa el-Fna square the city's best-known location. Those responsible for planting Thursday's powerful bomb at a café there that killed at least 15 people and left dozens injured were clearly intent on attracting media attention around the world. The attack has raised the specter of further terrorist action in Morocco, and has alarmed the Spanish government.

No group has as yet claimed responsibility, but initial speculation as to who might be behind the attack - apparently carried out by a suicide bomber - points to the reappearance of Islamist terrorism eight years after a series of bombings and shootings in the country's main commercial city of Casablanca in 2003 that left almost 50 people dead.

Until now it was believed that the Moroccan authorities had dismantled violent Islamic groups. The attack bears the hallmarks of Islamist terrorism, and comes at a time when the Arab world is being swept by political change, with Moroccans also demanding greater freedom.

Last week, a group claiming to be a Moroccan cell belonging to Al Qaeda posted a video on YouTube threatening to avenge what it called the systematic repression of Islamists by the Moroccan government.

The bombing, which coincided with a visit to Spain by an official Moroccan government delegation, will deal a further blow to the country's economy - one that is heavily dependent on tourism - and which has also suffered the consequences of the upheaval in the rest of the region. King Mohammed VI has said that he expects his government to act swiftly and transparently to establish the facts of what happened, and to bring those responsible to justice.

Whoever is responsible has, for the moment, succeeded in bringing a rapid halt to the reform process announced by the Moroccan monarch in a bid to prevent a repeat of the uprisings that are underway in neighboring countries.

Following a statement in February that he would not allow street protests throughout the nation demanding political and economic reforms and an end to endemic corruption to influence his actions in the short term, in March the king suddenly announced what he called deep-rooted Constitutional reform.

The draft for this was supposed to be ready in June, and would have included plans for an independent judiciary, a bigger role for the country's political parties in parliament, freer and fairer elections, and regional decentralization.

The king has so far avoided the question of whether he is prepared to give up any of his near-complete power over the country - power that makes him a political and economic factotum.

With this in mind, it is worth posing the question as to whether blocking this nascent democratic process through attacks such as that in Marrakech would benefit other interests than those of violent Islam.