MOROCCO ARRESTS EIGHT OVER ALLEGED TIES WITH IS

RABAT: Morocco has arrested eight men with alleged ties to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group active in the cities of Fez and Tangiers, the interior ministry said on Friday. A rifle, ammunition “and documents inciting towards jihad” were seized during the operation on Thursday, it said in a statement. An initial investigation pointed towards the men having ties with IS in Syria and Iraq, “recruiting and sending Moroccan volunteers” there. A study by the US-based Soufan Group said last December that at least 1,200 Moroccans had traveled to fight alongside IS in Iraq and Syria in the previous 18 months. In 2011, a cafe bombing killed 17 people, mostly foreign tourists, in the central city of Marrakesh. It was the deadliest attack in Morocco since Casablanca blasts in 2003 that killed 45 people, including 12 suicide bombers, and were claimed by Islamic militants.

DUTCH TO SEEK EU NOD FOR FREEZE ON TURKEY TALKS

THE HAGUE: The Dutch government will seek European Union support to temporarily freeze accession talks with Turkey, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday, in a move set to ratchet up tensions between Ankara and Brussels. “We are going to see whether there’s support in Europe... to suspend talks for half a year,” Rutte said at his weekly press conference. Turkey and the EU had agreed to speed up the long-stalled membership talks after both sides reached a deal in March to curb the flow of migrants into the European Union. But the process has stalled after a failed coup in July by a rogue military faction was followed by a crackdown that saw some 37,000 arrests. Rutte on Friday reiterated his Foreign Minister Bert Koenders’ statement earlier this week, who said the accession talks were “comatose.”