Rabat

Mobutu Sese Seko, the ailing former leader of Zaire, was in good condition after undergoing surgery for serious bleeding, the official Moroccan news agency MAP said. Mobutu, 66, suffering from prostate cancer, was brought to Rabat, the Moroccan capital, from the northern town of Tangier on Friday and admitted to a hospital. Police were on duty at the facility, and at least half a dozen official cars were parked outside.

A senior Iraqi diplomat who allegedly refused orders to return to Baghdad was found murdered in his car outside the capital, officials said Saturday. Moayed Arab Nouri, consul at the Iraqi Embassy and considered the No. 2 Iraqi diplomat in Rabat, was found dead in his car near Mehdia-Plage, 18 miles north of the capital, according to the Saudi Arabian newspaper Acarq al-Awsat. The report did not say when the killing took place.

Two ranking French Cabinet ministers flew to the Arab world Saturday. Premier Laurent Fabius arrived in Rabat, Morocco, on a 48-hour official visit. His talks will focus on economic issues. France is by far the North African nation's most important trading partner.

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Morocco's King Hassan II have been in contact about a possible meeting that "could be a great boost" to the Mideast peace process, Peres spokesman Uri Savir confirmed here late Monday. Savir was responding to a statement by Hassan in an interview with French journalists in Rabat, Morocco, that he would be willing to meet Peres if the prime minister had a serious peace plan to discuss.

Eleven people were killed in a stampede at a stadium in the Moroccan capital when thousands of spectators hurried to leave at the end of a concert wrapping up the city's landmark music festival. The stampede caused a fence to give way, killing five women, two teenagers and four men. Forty people were injured, eight of them seriously. The victims were among 70,000 spectators at a concert by Moroccan pop star Abdelaziz Stati at the Hay Nahda soccer stadium in Rabat.

A criminal court handed down jail sentences of up to 30 years to members of an Islamist cell that plotted to blow up Morocco's busiest port with homemade explosives, the state news agency MAP reported. After one of the country's biggest terrorism trials of recent years, the criminal court near Rabat sentenced 45 men to terms of two to 30 years. One female suspect, who gave birth while in prison, was given a suspended sentence. They all denied the charges, which included establishment of a criminal gang with the aim of committing terrorist acts, the making of explosives, forgery and failure to denounce terrorism.

The United Nations is investigating allegations of widespread sexual abuse by hundreds of Moroccan peacekeepers serving in Ivory Coast and has summoned Rabat's diplomats to respond, U.N. officials said. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the investigation involved Moroccan soldiers having sex with a large number of underage girls. The world body took the highly unusual step of confining the entire battalion of 800 troops to barracks in the rebel stronghold of Bouake.

A strong earthquake shook northern Morocco early today, killing at least 15 people around the Mediterranean port of Al Hoceima, the state news agency MAP reported. A civil defense spokesman in Al Hoceima said the village of Ait Kamara, nine miles away, was "completely destroyed." "So far rescue workers have found 15 bodies in that village," he said by phone. Most houses there were built of mud bricks. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 6.

At least 300,000 people, some holding portraits of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and pictures of Scud missiles, took to the streets of Rabat to show support for Iraq in the Gulf War. Demonstrators burned U.S., British, French and Israeli flags and demanded that allied troops, including Moroccan soldiers, withdraw from the Gulf.

Nine radical Islamists jailed in connection with the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings that killed 45 people broke out of top-security Kenitra prison, 25 miles east of Rabat, the Moroccan Justice Ministry said. A security source said the prisoners dug a tunnel under their cells. Islamist prisoner-rights advocacy group Ennassir said the jailbreak coincided with the beginning of a one-day hunger strike by about 1,000 Islamist inmates at several prisons. Ennassir Chairman Abderrahim Mohtad said the fasters were protesting what they called mistreatment and repression by prison officials.