This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A man ran towards a car carrying the Moroccan king shortly after the arrival of Pope Francis in the north African nation on Saturday, but he was swiftly seized by security guards.

King Mohammed VI was standing up in an open-topped car in a convoy alongside the pope’s vehicle, waving at crowds lining a street in Rabat. The king’s car sped up slightly, but there was no other sign of disruption.

It was not immediately clear what the man was trying to do.

The pope is on a two-day visit aimed at boosting Christian-Muslim ties and showing solidarity with Morocco’s ever-growing migrant community.

Morocco, which is almost 100% Muslim, has marketed itself as an oasis of religious tolerance in a region torn by militancy. It has offered training to Muslim preachers from Africa and Europe on what it describes as moderate Islam.

Francis, making the first papal visit to Morocco in 34 years, praised the monarch for providing “sound training to combat all forms of extremism, which so often lead to violence and terrorism, and which, in any event, constitute an offence against religion and against God himself”.

The king said learning was the only way to combat religious extremism. “To tackle radicalism, the solution is neither military nor financial; that solution has but one name: education. What all terrorists have in common is not religion, but rather ignorance of religion.”