Saudi military forces pressed their offensive against Yemen's Shiite rebels on Saturday after the insurgents made a cross-border raid earlier this week. Meanwhile rebels claim they captured some Saudi soldiers in Yemeni territory on Friday.
The leaders of rival clans in the eastern Bekaa Valley have signed an agreement to end bloody vendettas between them, in a region of Lebanon under strong Hezbollah influence.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said his country was ready to begin talks with northern Shiite insurgents, but will not negotiate with rebels with separatist demands.
In this edition: thousands of Shiite Lebanese are expelled from the UAE for refusing to rat on their compatriotes; civilians get caught in the crossfire in Yemen's civil war; students at a Cairo university are divided over a proposed niqab ban.
Yemen's government is denying claims by Shiite rebels - the subject of a current government offensive - that they shot down a government MiG warplane in the northern region of Saada on Friday, saying that a technical problem caused the crash.
Today on the Web: The web reacts to violent clashes in Yemen, the blogosphere talks about the terrible flooding in the wake of tropical storm Ketsana; and paintball fans recreate a portrait of Marilyn Monroe on a giant canvas.
The Yemeni military has said that it killed 140 Shiite rebels in the north of the country on Sunday. The government is demanding that the rebels respect a ceasefire announced on Friday.
In Cairo, the authorities allegedly target Shiite groups, who themselves stand accused of being linked to Iran and of trying to destabilise Egyptian society. The Shiites claim they are just trying to follow their branch of Islam.
A suicide car bombing at a market in a predominantly Shia town in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 33 people and possibly dozens as the blast tore through shops and damaged vehicles on Friday, police sources said.
Dozens of government forces and rebels have been killed or wounded after a short-lived ceasefire between the army and Shiite insurgents broke down overnight, scuppering plans to set up a humanitarian corridor in the country's north.
