Egypt has increased its security presence in the Sinai peninsula, four days after seven members of its forces were abducted there.Armoured vehicles were seen crossing into northern Sinai on Monday in response to the kidnapping.A video emerged at the weekend apparently showing the men pleading for their release.The Egyptian president held emergency meetings with security chiefs on Monday morning.President Mohammed Morsi has ruled out nego... Read more »

Heavy fighting is reported in the besieged Syrian town of Qusair after state forces launched a major offensive to re-capture the rebel stronghold.State TV says troops have captured key buildings in the town centre, a claim strongly denied by activists.Rebels say 50 people have been killed while state media says 70 "terrorists" are dead.Lebanese militants are said to be involved - Hezbollah siding with the government, Sunni gunmen with re... Read more »

A Saudi man has died after setting himself on fire in protest at his treatment by authorities, the BBC has learned.Sources told BBC Arabic that more than 100 hundred people gathered outside the police department in capital Riyadh in anger at Ali Jabiri Alhouraysi's death.He is said to have killed himself after being searched by police.The incident echoes the death of a Tunisian who set fire to himself as a protest in 2011, triggering rev... Read more »

A suicide bomber has attacked a Shia mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least eight people, police say.The mosque was being attended by relatives mourning victims of violence in the city the day before.Hours earlier, at least 12 people were killed in car bomb attacks on mainly Shia districts of the capital Baghdad.On Wednesday, at least 34 people died in bomb attacks across Iraq, several of which targeted Shia areas.... Read more »

A car bomb explosion near a hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi has killed several people, officials say. The death toll is unclear. Local officials initially said nine people had been killed. A hospital spokesman later said three bodies had been found. The blast follows a string of bombings in the eastern city in recent days. Security remains precarious in Libya since the uprising against long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, with prote... Read more »

King Mohammed V of Morocco has urged the conservative Istiqlal party to go back on a decision to pull out from the Islamist-ledgovernment,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 in Morocco, Middle-east-online.com reported. Overnight the king, ... Read more »

Twin car bombs have killed at least 43 people and injured at least 100 in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, near the Syrian border.Interior Minister Muammer Guler told Turkey's NTV the bombs had gone off near the town hall and post office.Video showed injured people being carried to safety amid shattered buildings and twisted wrecks of cars.No group has said it had carried out the attack, but a senior Turkish official suggested Syrian involv... Read more »

Ali Abdulemam, a prominent blogger in Bahrain, has been smuggled out of the troubled Gulf kingdom and taken refuge in the UK, the BBC has learned.Abdulemam, known as the "Bahraini Blogger", had been sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges that he was part of a terrorist organisation.He spent two years in hiding after a royal pardon was revoked.Abdulemam escaped in a secret compartment of a car up a causeway that joins Bahrain to Saudi... Read more »

A Finnish couple and an Austrian man abducted in Yemen in December have been freed.Yemeni tribesmen released the three to Omani authorities late on Wednesday on the border between the two countries, according to Yemeni officials.Austrian media reported that the three had arrived in Austria and had been taken to a hospital near Vienna.Many foreigners have been kidnapped in Yemen in recent years. Most have been freed unharmed, Bbc.co.uk re... Read more »

MPs in Jordan on Wednesday unanimously demanded the government expel Israeli Ambassador Daniel Nevo after detectives in Israel detained top Islamic cleric the mufti of Jerusalem."The (150-member) lower house of parliament unanimously demanded the government ask the Israeli ambassador to leave Jordan, and recall the Jordanian ambassador in Israel," Middle-east-online.com quotes Walid Obeidat as saying.