Spanish police on Tuesday arrested two "suspected terrorists" believed to be linked to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, Spain's interior ministry said.

Officers "today detained two suspected terrorists of al-Qaida in Murcia and Zaragoza," with help from the French and Moroccan police, it said.

For more than a year Yassamane and Eric have been waiting to adopt a child in Morocco. But a decision to tighten the adoption law has thrown the whole process into doubt, leaving dozens of hopeful foreign couples in limbo.

Kafala as it is known in Morocco, or "custody" in Arabic, allows Muslims -- including converts to Islam -- to assume the guardianship of orphans in the North African nation.

A fatwa published this week by Morocco's higher council of religious scholars (CSO) calling for the death penalty for Muslims who renounce their faith has sparked fierce controversy in the country.

The scholars, who represent official Islam in Morocco, said in their edict, published in Tuesday's edition of Arabic-language daily Akhbar al-Youm, that Muslims who reject their faith "should be condemned to death."

Eleven migrants trying to reach Europe died after their boat capsized off the north coast of Morocco, medical sources and a human rights group said on Wednesday.

Of the 34 people traveling in the boat, reached up by the Moroccan navy at midday on Tuesday, two children, three women and six men died, and another 12 were hospitalized, a doctor in the coastal town of Hoceima told Agence France Presse.

Israel on Wednesday defended a decision to turn away two Moroccan MPs trying to enter the West Bank from Jordan earlier this week saying they did not have entry visas.

"Every Moroccan citizen, whether or not they are part of a delegation, needs a visa to enter the West Bank via Israel," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Agence France Presse.

A solution to the conflict in Western Sahara, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has been deployed for two decades, is more important than ever as a result of the Islamist revolt raging in northern Mali, the French president said on Thursday.

"The economic potential is enormous. But I am also aware of the obstacles, and the question of the Western Sahara, which has been waiting to be resolved for more than 30 years," President Francois Hollande told the Moroccan parliament.

French President Francois Hollande arrived in Morocco on Wednesday fresh from battling an explosive tax fraud scandal that risks overshadowing his landmark two-day visit to the former colony.

Hollande, who was welcomed by King Mohammed VI at Casablanca airport, has sought to limit the fallout from the scandal and insisted before leaving Paris that ex-budget minister Jerome Cahuzac who was charged in a tax fraud probe "did not benefit from any protection."

Omar Razzouki gazes intently at the wooden box, marveling at what might be the solution to the perennial water woes that he and other nomads like him across the Sahara desert face daily.

More than 330 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, or around 40 percent of the population, do not have access to clean drinking water, according to a report published to mark world water day by British NGO WaterAid.

Morocco's military trial and imprisonment of 25 Sahrawis, nine of them for life, violated international law, Human Rights Watch charged on Monday, calling on Rabat to either free or retry the defendants in a civilian court.

The New York-based rights watchdog said the military tribunal rejected defense demands to investigate the allegations by the accused that police had tortured them and forced them to sign statements they had not read.

Thousands of people marched through the Moroccan capital on Sunday to protest against unemployment and the cost of living, ahead of plans by the Islamist-led government to push for social and economic reforms.

Protesters marched for "our rights and freedoms" in an action called by two trade unions, chanting slogans against government policies, corruption and the high cost of living, an Agence France Presse photographer said.