Booby-trapped New Year message sent to editor of Arabic-language daily

The editor of Morocco's main Arabic-language national daily received a booby-trapped letter in the form of a New Year message but escaped without injury when a member of staff spotted suspicious-looking wires and took it to the police. Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned the 5 January attack on Mohammed El-Brini, editor of Al-Ahdath Al-Maghribia and called on the Moroccan authorities to undertake a full-scale investigation to find those responsible. "The person in the editorial office who opened the envelope noticed that there were wires and abnormal aspects to the letter, so we immediately took it to the police," the editor told Reporters Without Borders. "To us it's obvious who was responsible: It's from Islamist fundamentalist movements. It's an extension of the 16 May 2003 (bomb attacks) in Casablanca, but in another form," he said. "Police identified the type of explosives in the letter which appeared to be similar to that used in those bombings, " he added. Al-Ahdath Al-Maghribia, a newspaper close to the socialist party, has recently received repeated threats, by post and email. Its editorial line is hostile to all Islamist movements and parties and it condemned all such forces after the Casablanca bombings. Four letter bombs were sent to four Kuwaiti journalists working for the country's main newspapers at the beginning of December 2003. An investigation is under way into those attacks, which appeared intended to intimidate the recipients.