Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah traveled to Morocco on Friday for an "official visit", state news agency SPA reported, refuting rumors that the octogenarian monarch's health was deteriorating.

The king, who was born in 1924, has spent time in Morocco recovering after operations in recent years.

Morocco denied on Saturday accusations by Amnesty International that security forces tortured six men who were arrested after a demonstration calling for the independence of Western Sahara.

The Sahrawis were arrested on May 9 in connection with a protest that took place five days earlier in Laayoune, the main city in disputed Western Sahara, which turned violent.

Six Sahrawi activists arrested this month after pro-independence protests in Western Sahara said they were tortured by Moroccan police and made to sign confessions, Amnesty International charged on Thursday.

"According to the information received by Amnesty International, all six men told the investigative judge that they had been tortured and otherwise ill-treated and that their 'confessions' were extracted under torture in police custody," the rights group said.

A Moroccan street vendor in the southern city of Marrakesh died in hospital after setting himself on fire in protest at having his goods confiscated by the authorities, various sources said on Tuesday.

Mbarek el-Karassi, 32, died on Monday evening from severe burns to the face, hands and stomach, said Mohammed Ghalloussi, a local representative of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights.

Descendants of Cape Verde's Jewish community, a diverse, multi-cultural diaspora from around the world, stand in silent homage to the memory of their ancestors in a Catholic cemetery restored by a Muslim king.

The gathering in Praia, the capital of the west African archipelago, is more than just an emotional introduction among newly discovered family and friends. For its organizers, it is a potent symbol of religious tolerance.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco has urged the conservative Istiqlal party to go back on a decision to pull out from the Islamist-led government, a spokesman for the party said on Sunday.

Istiqlal's national council, the main ally of the ruling Islamists, announced on Saturday it was pulling out of the government over its failure to shore up the economy and solve dire social issues.

The national council of Morocco's conservative Istiqlal party, the main ally of the ruling Islamists, decided on Saturday to pull out of the government, a party official said.

The decision by Istiqlal, which holds several ministerial portfolios including education and the economy, could mean a general election or a cabinet reshuffle by the government headed by the Party of Justice and Development, the PJD.

Polisario Front chief Mohamed Abdelaziz has warned that his movement could take up arms to seek independence from Morocco if the U.N. fails to resolve the Western Sahara conflict, Algeria's APS news agency reported Saturday.

"We have believed in the United Nations, but if it fails to organize a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara to allow the Sahrawi people to recover independence, then we will take up arms to liberate our territory," APS quoted Abdelaziz as saying.

Polisario Front leader Mohamed Abdelaziz said on Friday Morocco's "policy of fear and terror" in the Western Sahara had failed and that victory was in sight.

Abdelaziz, the self-styled Sahrawi president, was speaking on the 40th anniversary of the rebel group's formation.

Members of two radical Islamist cells dismantled at the weekend in northern Morocco wanted "to carry out jihadist attacks" in the kingdom and had contacts in Spain and Belgium, the interior ministry said on Thursday.

"The members of the two cells, indoctrinated with takfirist (extremist) ideology, had forged links with like-minded people abroad, in occupied Melilla and in Belgium," the ministry said.