Word: casablanca
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...food isn't the main attraction at the CasaBlanca Italian restaurant in Maspeth, Queens, N.Y. You go for the Sicilian kitsch--the plastic flowers, the bronze-tinted mirrors, the piped-in Godfather theme. The walls bear snapshots of movie stars visiting the place, among them Johnny Depp (Donnie Brasco), Hugh Grant (Mickey Blue Eyes) and James Caan (The Godfather). At a round table sit five men--sturdy, with slick hair and crumpled suits--having a good rude time as two other men in velour sweatsuits, drivers or bodyguards probably, sit at a subsidiary table. They turn quiet and suspicious when...
Massino, 61, has other legitimate businesses (Cafe Via Vento, in Maspeth) and properties (in Queens and Palm Coast, Fla.), but his favorite is the CasaBlanca. From that neighborhood ristorante, he has allegedly run an operation that, the feds assert, includes extortion, loan sharking, illegal gambling, narcotics and murder in a vast criminal empire whose tentacles stretch up into Canada and back to the Sicilian motherland. Investigators say he certified his power in 2000, when he convened a meeting of four of the Five Families, at--where else?--the CasaBlanca...
...have heard the preachings of Sheik Mohammed Fizazi, the spiritual leader of Salafia Jihadia, a group of Moroccan radicals said by some investigators to have ties to al-Qaeda. In August 2003 Fizazi was sentenced to 30 years in jail for inspiring the terrorists who bombed five sites in Casablanca, including a Spanish club, in May 2003. Zougam's name surfaced during the investigation of those attacks: at one point, he shared an apartment in Madrid with Abdelaziz Benyaich, one of those arrested for his alleged connection with the bombings. Morocco last week was again looking for links between Zougam...
...fire-breathing monsters. Metaphorically, the word is used today to mean a fancy or unrealizable dream. Apparently, this is a very appropriate word to describe deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's thugs, both in being monsters and in pursuing the unrealizable dream of keeping him in power. Paris Vangelatos Casablanca...
...although these arrests open an important new avenue of investigation." It was a far cry from even earlier that day when the minister still considered ETA the prime suspect. Spanish and French authorities say the Moroccans may be linked to the synchronized suicide bombings that killed 33 people in Casablanca last May. Government sources in Morocco are more emphatic, telling TIME there was evidence that all three had connections to the extremist groups believed to have directed those attacks, Salafia Jihadia and its offshoot cell Assirat al-Moustaqim (Straight Path). These groups, Moroccan sources say, are associated with Osama...