World on alert after weekend of terror
Yesterday, seven more people were killed in a suicide attack on board a Jerusalem bus, while a Palestinian blew himself up on the outskirts of the city.
The attacks endangered a US-backed peace plan before it had gotten off the ground.
The three suicide bombings and a shooting left nine Israeli civilians and five Palestinian suicide bombers dead.
They were timed to coincide with the first Israeli-Palestinian summit since 2000, held late on Saturday between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr Sharon immediately postponed a trip to Washington for talks on the "roadmap to peace" plan with US President George W Bush after receiving news of the incidents.
In Morocco, 41 people were killed on Friday night when five "groups of kamikazes" 14 attackers in all carried out bombings in Casablanca.
Yesterday, agents in Morocco detained "several dozen" militants in Casablanca, Fez and Tangiers, on suspicions that at least two Moroccan Islamic groups were behind the deadly blasts, officials said.
Without directly implicating al-Qaida, the Moroccan government an ally of the US laid the blame on international terrorism.
The Casablanca attacks came five days after a Western compound was targeted by bombers in Saudi Arabia. At least 29 people died in the capital Riyadh after the suicide bombers detonated four explosions last Tuesday.
In Chechnya, two women suicide bombers killed at least 30 people, including themselves, last Wednesday.
The US suspects al-Qaida was responsible for the Casablanca bombs, warning that similar attacks are likely.
Future attacks will likely be "on a small scale" against "soft targets", possibly in Asia and Africa, officials said.
Last night, a security expert warned no country with a Western link is safe from terrorist attacks, in the wake of the Moroccan suicide bombings.
Security analyst Paul Beaver said the whole world is vulnerable after last year's attacks in Bali and Mombassa.
He said: "There is no doubt in my mind that we are now in a state where an attack could happen in Europe, America, Asia anywhere that has a Western connection.
"I think we are into the phase of people operating against Western targets that are unguarded. We have gone through the period of attacking American bases, American facilities those are now too well guarded."
Mr Beaver said Western countries were all now "tarred with the same brush" and seen as anti-Islam.
The US said it was a "time of concern" as alerts spread worldwide.
The terror alerts include a British ban on flights to and from Kenya and warnings about dangers elsewhere in Africa and Southeast Asia.
A senior official in Pakistan, hit by multiple bombings at Western-branded petrol stations in Karachi last Thursday, said the recent attacks might be linked.
Meanwhile at home, the Department of Foreign Affairs has warned Irish tourists against travelling to Kenya and Saudi Arabia amid mounting fears of further terrorist attacks.




