Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah defended on Friday Lebanon’s decision to distance itself from regional developments.

He said: “Lebanon is part of the region, but its decision is aimed at preserving the government.”

Libyan officials from the port city of Misrata are barring thousands of displaced people from returning to two villages and allowing militias to loot and burn the area, a rights group said on Tuesday.

"Tomina and Kararim are ghost towns because Misrata officials are blocking thousands of people who fled from returning home," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of New-York based Human Rights Watch.

At least 46 journalists were killed in 2011, with Pakistan the deadliest country for the second year running, a rights group said Tuesday.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said deaths during dangerous assignments -- such as covering street protests -- reached the highest level on record in 2011 as the Arab uprisings dominated the headlines.

Residents of the battle-scarred town of Misrata voted on Monday to elect their local council, in Libya's first poll in more than 40 years and held four months after the killing of Moammar Gadhafi.

"This is an historic event. We hope these elections will be an example" for the rest of Libya, the president of the port city's electoral commission, Mohammed Balrouin, told Agence France Presse.

Algeria has uncovered a large cache of weapons believed to originate from Libya, including dozens of shoulder-held missiles that can be used to shoot down airliners, newspapers said Monday.

According to the French-speaking el-Watan, 15 SA-24 and 28 SAM-7 Russian-made man-portable surface-to-air missiles were found at a location in the southern desert called In Amenas.

Libya will hold its first election for a constituent assembly on schedule in June, the election commission head was quoted as saying by the official news agency on Sunday.

"The elections will be held on schedule as set by the constitutional declaration" of the ruling National Transitional Council, the official LANA news agency quoted Othman al-Kajiji as saying.

Algeria proposed Saturday to boost cooperation with North African neighbors against terror and organized crime as the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) held its first high-level conference since 1996.

Algeria sought "true and effective Maghreb cooperation in the fields of terrorism, organized crime, illegal arms and drug trafficking and clandestine immigration," Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told counterparts in Rabat.

A Tunisian court cleared Libyan former prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi on Tuesday on a charge he had crossed illegally into Tunisia as he fled Libya last year, his lawyer said.

"The court ... has acquitted al-Mahmoudi and so we are demanding his immediate release," lawyer Mabrouk Kourchid said after the hearing in the southern city of Tozeur. "There is no legal reason to keep him in prison."

A fierce gunfight between two tribes in Libya's remote southeastern desert has killed six people in the past two days and wounded another 20, officials and tribal sources told Agence France Presse on Monday.

Clashes between members of the Zwai and Tobu tribes in the town of Kufra killed five people on Sunday, while one person was slain in a firefight on Monday, tribal sources said.

Syria has asked Tunisia and Libya to close their embassies in Damascus in a tit-for-tat move after they both expelled Syria's envoys, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday.

"Syrian authorities have asked Libya and Tunisia to close their embassies in Damascus in a reciprocal move," Jihad Makdisi told reporters.