Two women suspected of belonging to a cell linked to the Islamic State group that planned to carry out attacks in Morocco have been arrested, the interior ministry said Friday.

"Two women extremists from the terrorist cell that was recently dismantled and whose members had pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State were arrested Thursday in Tangiers," a ministry statement cited by the official MAP news agency reported.

Morocco said eight people were arrested on Tuesday over alleged plots to carry out attacks mainly targeting security officials on behalf of the Islamic State jihadist group.

The newly formed Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation, dubbed Morocco's FBI by the media, said an eight-member "terrorist cell" was dismantled across the country in the towns of Tangiers, Bouznika, Khouribga and Taounate.

Four more people were arrested on Tuesday over the lynching of a suspected thief in a marketplace of central Morocco, local authorities said.

Officials and media had reported that a crowd fatally injured a man and seriously hurt his alleged accomplice Thursday in the town of Midelt after accusing them of theft.

A crowd has lynched and fatally injured a man and seriously hurt his alleged accomplice after accusing them of robbery near a weekly market in central Morocco, local officials and media reported Friday.

The man was caught "red-handed" Thursday near the town of Midelt and another suspected robber also attacked, the officials told state news agency MAP. 

Morocco said Thursday it had arrested eight people suspected of operating a recruitment cell for the Islamic State group in the North African kingdom.

Cell members "secured the transfer of dozens of fighters... in coordination with elements operating on the border between Turkey and Syria," said an interior ministry statement carried by the official MAP news agency. 

A Moroccan regulator said Tuesday it rejected a request to sanction a television channel for broadcasting a "scantily dressed" American pop star Jennifer Lopez at a concert in the highly conservative Muslim country.

The request from Islamist Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane came after Lopez sparked controversy over her performance before record crowds at the annual Mawazine music festival in May.

A Moroccan journalist on hunger strike in Geneva, who was previously jailed for insulting the Moroccan king and is now being denied a passport, was told Sunday to return home to plead his case.

"Morocco is a state of law," said Mohamed Aujjar, Morocco's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, insisting the journalist had "every right to contest the administrative decision" not to provide him with a certificate needed to renew his passport.

Morocco said Thursday it arrested nine suspects for spreading Islamic State group propaganda and trying to recruit people to join the jihadist organization.

The arrests were carried out in a number of cities and towns in the North African country, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Moroccan police have arrested three Afghans suspected of links with jihadists as they prepared to board a plane to Denmark, officials said Wednesday.

They said the three men were detained on Saturday at Marrakesh airport holding fake Pakistani passports.

Videos showing a crowd attacking a presumed homosexual in public in Morocco because of his appearance triggered fresh controversy Tuesday over social intolerance in the conservative Muslim country.

The website Goud posted a three-minute video of the man trying in vain to take shelter in a taxi to escape angry youths in the central city of Fez.