Israel's army chief arrived in Morocco on Monday for meetings with senior defence officials, military sources said, as cooperation between the countries expands following a normalisation of ties.

Aviv Kohavi's three-day trip is the first official visit of an Israeli army chief to the North African kingdom.

Kohavi will meet Morocco's minister delegate in charge of defence administration, Abdellatif Loudiyi, as well as the Inspector General of the Royal Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Belkhir El Farouk, and senior defence officials, an Israeli spokesman said.

Morocco had cut relations with Israel in 2000 following the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, but re-established ties two decades later in a deal that saw Washington recognise Rabat's sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara.

Since then, a steady stream of Moroccan and Israeli officials have visited each others' countries and signed cooperation deals in various fields.

They have included Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who on a visit to the kingdom in November last year signed a security agreement making it easier for Rabat to acquire high-tech exports from Israel's defence industry.

Last month, Israeli military observers for the first time attended the annual "African Lion" military exercise -- vast drills involving thousands of personnel from several nations, co-organised by Morocco and the United States.

And in March, an Israeli army delegation met with Moroccan officers in Rabat, in the first visit of its kind since the 2020 normalisation deal, signing a military cooperation agreement.

The North African kingdom's mending of relations with Israel re-ignited its long-standing rivalry with Algeria, which in August last year cut diplomatic ties with Rabat.

Algiers cited "hostile acts" and Morocco's relations -- including on military and security issues -- with "the Zionist entity", referring to Israel.

Morocco considers the Western Sahara an integral part of the kingdom, while the Algeria-backed Polisario Front has long demanded an independence referendum there.

Tunisia soldier killed in border clash with smugglers: ministry
Tunis (AFP) July 18, 2022 - A Tunisian soldier was killed Monday on the country's southern border during a clash with smugglers trying to transfer vehicles from Libya to Algeria, the Tunisian defence ministry said.

"This afternoon, a military patrol operating in the militarised border area of Bourj al-Khadra responded to an attempted entry of six smuggled vehicles," the ministry said.

The vehicle occupants opened fire and the patrol responded, prompting the attackers to flee, with one soldier left dead and another wounded in the shootout, the ministry added.

Fuel, food products, electronic equipment and other products are smuggled across the border regions between Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, with smugglers taking advantage in particular of chaos in Libya since the 2011 fall of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.

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