A massive blast which killed 14 people in a popular tourist cafe in the Moroccan city of Marrakech was caused by terrorists, officials say.

An explosion at a cafe in Marrakech has killed several people, Morocco’s state news agency has said.

Morocco’s official news agency said officials have raised the death toll following the collapse of a minaret during a crowded prayer service to 41 people.

Forty-seven people have been convicted and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison over a suicide bombing last year at a Casablanca Internet cafe, Morocco’s official news agency said today.

A 26-year-old engineer has been sentenced to three years in prison for “usurping” the identity of the brother of Moroccan King Mohammed VI on Facebook.

A man exploded a gas canister near a tourist bus in Meknes north-east of the Moroccan capital Rabat today, though no casualties were reported in the blast, the state news agency MAP reported.

Morocco raised its terror alert to its highest level today, citing a “serious threat of a terrorist act” and ordering increased security nationwide, the Interior Ministry said.

Police detained two men near the scene of three suicide bombings in Morocco today, including one who threatened to blow himself up, the official news agency said.

Two men sought by police for their suspected role in the March bombing of an internet cafe were killed today during a police chase in Casablanca, Morocco's official news agency reported.

A MOROCCAN man who was stopped from looking at terrorist websites in an internet cafe in Casablanca blew himself up with explosives, the country’s Interior Ministry said yesterday.

A bus skidded off a treacherous mountain road in north-central Morocco, killing nine people and injuring 45 others, the official news reported today.

Moroccan security services have now rounded up 56 people as they dismantle a network allegedly planning terror attacks in the North African kingdom, the interior minister was quoted as saying.

SCIENTISTS from the National University of Ireland, Galway, are leading one of the world’s largest studies into how microscopic marine plants might affect the earth’s climate, it emerged yesterday.

Two buses collided on a motorway linking Marrakech and Agadir in Morocco, killing 23 people and injuring 63 others, 11 of them seriously, Morocco’s official MAP news agency reported.

Moroccan police have dismantled a terrorist network, arresting 17 people, including two former prisoners at the US base at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay reported.

Amnesty International accused Spanish and Moroccan security forces yesterday of using excessive force and violating immigrants’ rights in trying to repel waves of Africans seeking to gain a foothold in Europe over the past month.

DOZENS of African illegal immigrants who charged across the border into the Spanish enclave of Melilla have been deported to Morocco after a week of deadly clashes, officials said yesterday.

Six Africans were killed in clashes with Moroccan security services near the Spanish enclave of Melilla, the official Moroccan news agency said today.

Spanish and Moroccan officials had no comment on reports today that their respective security forces were responsible for shooting at five immigrants who were killed when hundreds rushed a barrier at one of its two enclaves on the northern Morocco coast.

Five Moroccans held for nearly three years at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay – including a suspected bodyguard for Osama bin Laden – have gone on trial in Rabat charged with posing a threat to national security.

Rescue teams were combing the rubble of mud-and-stone houses today after a massive earthquake killed more than 550 people in a desperately poor region of northern Morocco.

A powerful earthquake struck northern Morocco today, killing at least nine people and injuring about 40 others.

A Hercules military transport plane crashed in a residential area outside the Algerian capital today and there were “numerous casualties” said state radio.

POLICE investigating a string of suicide bombings that killed 28 bystanders in downtown Casablanca are focusing on a homegrown Islamic militant group with suspected ties to the al-Qaida terror network.

Five “groups of kamikazes” – 14 attackers in all – carried out the deadly series of suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco’s commercial capital, killing 28 people, the interior minister said.

At least 20 people were killed when four explosions tore through the Moroccan coastal city of Casablanca damaging a synagogue, the Belgian consulate and a Spanish restaurant, officials said.

By John Spader, Rabat

Spain today grabbed back the tiny uninhabited Mediterranean isle no bigger than a soccer pitch that is at the centre of a bitter dispute with Morocco.