Morocco crash leaves 16 royal guards dead

SIXTEEN members of Morocco's royal guards have died in a road accident as they were headed north on a bus to prepare for a visit by King Mohammed VI, medics say.

The pre-dawn accident took place near Al-Hoceima in northern Morocco and wounded 42 other guards, a hospital source said.

They were on board a bus which plunged into a ravine, the source and a local official said, without giving a cause for the accident.

The king sent a messages of condolences to the families of the victims and decided to take on all the costs for the burials as well as the medical fees of those injured in the accident.

Mohammed VI, Morocco's ruler since 1999, was on Saturday also to chair a traditional annual ceremony in Rabat marking the anniversary of his accession to the throne.

Known as "Celebration of loyalty and allegiance", the ceremony is an elaborate event during which senior government officials and representatives from across the North African country pay allegiance to the king.

But opposition activists are opposed to the event and have called for its cancellation in statements posted on Facebook.

Opposition activists have said the annual event perpetuates a "backwardness" and "servitude" in Morocco that is out of touch with the times.

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Israel drone killed Sinai militants: group

AN Egyptian militant group says a strike that killed four of its members in the Sinai peninsula was Israeli.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis said four of its members belonging to Sinai Bedouin tribes had been killed by Israeli drones on Friday.

Egypt's military denied on Friday that there had been any Israeli strikes inside Egyptian territory.

The group accused the Egyptian army of co-ordinating the attack with Israel, and threatened more strikes against the Jewish state.

"How can the Egyptian army allow the Zionist unmanned planes to cross into Egyptian territory," the statement said.

A funeral was held for the militants on Saturday, with the bodies of the four driven through several border towns in north Sinai.

Dozens of men on pick-up trucks flying the jihadist black flag paraded through the towns, in an act of defiance to the army, witnesses said.

Militants based mainly in north Sinai near Israel's border have escalated attacks on security forces and other targets since July 3, when the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and installed a new government in Cairo.

But the army has been reluctant to confront the militants inside towns in order not to provoke the tight-knit tribes, military sources say.

There have been conflicting reports about the source of Friday's attack.

Officials said the strike came from the Egyptian military, as part of their campaign to curtail a surge in violence and rein in militant activity in the lawless Sinai.

The state owned al-Ahram newspaper and the official news agency MENA reported on Saturday that Egyptian military aircraft conducted the strike, quoting anonymous security officials.

Witnesses said Egyptian military helicopters hovered above the site after the blasts.

On Friday, the Egyptian military said two explosions were heard in the Sinai Peninsula, close to the border with Israel, and that it would investigate their cause.

"There is no truth whatsoever to any Israeli strikes inside Egyptian territory and the claim that there is Egyptian and Israeli co-ordination on the matter is utterly baseless," military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Aly said in a statement on Friday.

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