Terror attacks against foreign tourists in North Africa

Here is a recap of previous attacks targeting foreign tourists holidaying in North Africa, after Moroccan authorities arrested three suspects in the murder this week of two Scandinavian hikers.

Morocco

On April 28, 2011, a bomb attack on a popular tourist cafe in the city of Marrakesh kills 17 people, 11 of them European citizens, and wounding dozens of others.

Popular tourist cafe in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh after an April 2011 bomb attack. By HORTENSE DE VALROGER (AFP/File)

The two men responsible for the attack are sentenced to death and seven others handed jail sentences ranging from two to 10 years.

The bombing is the deadliest in Morocco since attacks in the coastal city of Casablanca in 2003 that killed 33 people and 12 bombers.

Tunisia

Ambulance evacuates victims of the gun attack on the Tunisian capital's Bardo Museum in March 2015. By FETHI BELAID (AFP)

On March 18, 2015, two men gun down 20 foreign tourists and a policeman at the Bardo National Museum in Tunisia. Among the dead are French, Italian and Japanese nationals.

The two attackers are shot dead by security forces.

The carnage, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, is the deadliest assault on foreigners in Tunisia since 2002.

Twenty-five people are being tried for the attack and could face the death sentence.

On June 26, 2015, a Tunisian student goes on a shooting spree at the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel in the beach resort of Sousse, killing 38 foreign tourists including 30 from Britain. The attack is claimed by IS.

The trial begins in May 2017 with 26 Tunisian nationals prosecuted including six members of the security forces accused of not assisting people in danger.

Algeria

Village of Ait Saada in Algeria near where the body of Frenchman Herve Gourdel was found in September 2014. By FAROUK BATICHE (AFP/File)

On September 21, 2014 French national Herve Gourdel, 55, is kidnapped while hiking in a national park in the northeastern Kabyle region of Algeria.

Three days later the IS-linked Jund al-Khilifa, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate", claims to have beheaded Gourdel in a video posted online after Paris rejected their demand to halt air strikes in Iraq.

Gourdel's body is found three months later.