RABAT, March 20 (Reuters) - Moroccan magistrates have charged a man suspected by police of leading the military wing of the country's main Jihadist group and taking part in bombings in Casablanca and Madrid, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Saad Houssaini, 38, was charged with "setting up a criminal gang to organise terrorist acts and attempting to compromise the security of the state", lawyer Abdelfattah Zahrash told Reuters.

He declined to provide more details because the investigation was still under way.

Security sources said earlier this month police had arrested Houssaini on suspicion that he was chief of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group's (MICG) military committee and had prepared 13 suicide bombs which killed 45 people in Casablanca, Morocco's commercial capital, in 2003.

They also suspected him of playing a role in the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

On March 11, a few days after Houssaini's arrest, a Moroccan man detonated explosives he was carrying under his clothes at an Internet cafe in Casablanca, killing himself and wounding three others.

Moroccan newspapers reported that soon afterwards police arrested the bomber's suspected chief, who they said had become leader of the MICG's military wing after Houssaini's arrest.

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