MARRAKESH — One key suspect in the murder of two Scandinavian hikers in Morocco was a plumber and another was a carpenter who enjoyed drinking alcohol before embracing radicalism, friends and neighbors said.

Abderrahim Khayali, the plumber, was the first to be arrested Monday by Moroccan authorities in the tourist hub of Marrakesh, hours after the bodies of the two women were found in the High Atlas mountains.

On Thursday authorities said they had also taken into custody Younes Ouaziyad, the carpenter, as well as street vendors Rachid Afatti and Abdessamad Ejjoud — all suspects in a "terrorist act".

The Rabat prosecutor said the four men, aged between 25 and 33, appeared in a video pledging allegiance to the Daesh (the so-called IS) group before the grisly murder.

On Friday Moroccan authorities announced nine new arrests over the killing of Danish student Louisa Veserager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland.

One of them was beheaded, according to a source close to the investigation.

Khayali's arrest has shocked friends and relatives in Al-Azzouzia, an impoverished neighborhood of Marrakesh.

"I cannot believe it," said his aunt Fatima Khayali, 46, wearing a black niqab veil revealing only her eyes.

The 33-year-old suspect "worked as a plumber for a hotel" but resigned because the establishment served alcohol which is proscribed by Islamic practice, she said.

Khayali embraced Salafism — a form of radical Islam that has taken root in many impoverished areas of Morocco — three years ago, she said.

After his conversion to Salafism he refused to shake hands with women or have them present when men were around, according to a woman who gave her name as Atika and described herself as Khayali's "childhood friend".

Morocco has long been considered among the most liberal of nations in the Arab world, although Islam is the state religion.

The country, which relies heavily on income from tourism, had been spared militant attacks since 2011, when a bomb blast at a cafe in Marrakesh's famed Jamaa El Fna Square killed 17 people, mostly European tourists.

But Morocco is marked by glaring social and economic inequalities, against a backdrop of high unemployment among young people. — AFP