And we thought the Madonna remake of Casablanca was the worst news item involving Morocco. Nine convicted Islamist terrorists have broken out of a Kenitra prison. All nine received life sentences for their participation in the plot that resulted in a series of bombings in Casablanca in 2003:

Nine radical Islamists jailed for their links with Casablanca suicide bombings that killed 45 people in 2003 escaped from a Moroccan top security jail on Monday, the Justice Ministry said.

The nine men broke out of Kenitra prison, 40 km (25 miles) east of Rabat, the Ministry said. …

Islamist prisoner rights advocacy group Ennassir said the jailbreak coincided with the beginning of a one-day hunger strike by about 1,000 Islamist prisoners held at several prisons across Morocco, including Kenitra’s.

“Most of the escaped prisoners had been sentenced to life imprisonment late in 2003 for their links with 2003’s Casablanca bombings. It is the first such jailbreak,” Ennassir chairman Abderrahim Mohtad told Reuters.

The hunger strike sounds less like a coincidence and more like a coordinated action. Either way, it calls into question the competence of Morocco in keeping captured terrorists securely within their prison system. These nine mass murderers will undoubtedly attempt to rejoin the al-Qaeda network and plan another attack as soon as possible. And, just as with more than a few of the Gitmo detainees released, we will have to spend time regaining ground we lost.

Do people really wonder why we prefer to keep the terrorists on an island?