Casablanca: At least 24 people died and over 60 were injured when several bomb blasts caused carnage near a foreign consulate, an international hotel, a Jewish centre and a Spanish restaurant in Morocco's business capital of Casablanca, officials said.

Officials in the overwhelmingly Muslim North African country blamed the attacks, which sparked scenes of carnage in the Atlantic coast city just after 10.00 pm GMT (3.30 am IST), on "international terrorism".

While the targets were places frequented by foreigners, most of the casualties were local inhabitants, they said.

Ten of the dead were described as suicide bombers who, at least in part, had carried out the attacks.

Interior Minister Mostafa Sahel added that three Moroccan suspects, one of them alleged to have been a would-be suicide bomber who was injured, had been arrested.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. The identities of the dead were not yet known, although the official MAP news agency said they included a hotel doorman and two police officers.

Officials said three of the bombs were in cars, which exploded outside the city's Belgian consulate, the Safir hotel and a Jewish cultural centre.

The attack, which apparently killed the most people took place at Casa Espana, a Spanish cultural centre and nearby Spanish restaurant, where many people were eating.

At least 18 people were believed to have been killed in either one or two bomb blasts there, although little debris was visible from outside.

The main explosion was inside the centre, where some 100 people had been having dinner, according to an official at the centre.

Witnesses of the attack on the Jewish centre said the bodies of two suicide bombers were pulled out of the rubble.

The Interior Minister said there were similarities between the attacks in Casablanca and those in Saudi Arabia on May 12, in which 34 people were killed.

The Saudi attacks have been widely blamed on the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida, although no group has claimed responsibility.

Sahel charged that the terrorists' goal was to disrupt Morocco's democratic process and its political pluralism.

"Morocco will not be intimidated by those who choose to kill innocent people," he vowed.

A leader of the Opposition Justice and Development Party condemned the bombings as "a savage terrorist crime".

"We condemn it as we condemn the perpetrators and their commanders," the group's Parliamentary president Mustapha Ramid said.

Ambulances were called in from surrounding areas to aid the injured, a police source said.

Meanwhile Saudi crown prince Abdullah telephoned Moroccan King Mohammad VI on May 17 and condemned the suicide bombings.

Agencies