(Corrects to Algerian capital from Rabat in paragraph 5)

RABAT, May 6 (Reuters) - Moroccan officials broke up a network recruiting fighters for al Qaeda's North African branch and arrested 20 people overnight in several towns across the country, state news agency MAP reported on Sunday.

The gang sent volunteers to training camps run by the Algerian-based al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), MAP quoted police sources as saying.

"The operation ... allowed the arrest of around 20 people in several towns across the kingdom," it said.

Morocco, a staunch U.S. ally, says it has broken up more than 50 militant Islamist cells, some linked to al Qaeda, and arrested more than 3,000 people since suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003.

Four years of calm were broken this year when six Islamists blew themselves up in the course of a month in Casablanca, killing one other person. On April 11, triple suicide bombings in the Algerian capital killed 33 people.

The attacks have deepened fears of a broad upsurge in violence across the region after the GSPC changed its name with the goal of fusing similar Islamist groups in the region and using it as a base for attacks on European targets.

Morocco's government has pledged a war without respite on violent Islamist groups after the latest attacks.

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