Kuwaiti police fired teargas and stun grenades to disperse an opposition rally demanding the release of prominent dissident Mussallam al-Barrak, activists said on Thursday.

The public prosecutor on Wednesday ordered Barrak, a former MP, to be held for 10 days after he was questioned for allegedly insulting the judiciary.

Iraq's government once battled entrenched Shiite militiamen but is now making common cause with them against a jihadist-led onslaught that Baghdad's forces are struggling to contain on their own.

Shiite militiamen are fighting alongside Iraq's flagging forces, bringing experience, morale and increased numbers to the government side, which has lost large areas of five provinces to the Sunni Arab militant offensive.

A limited explosion occurred late Wednesday inside a car near a Cairo military hospital, Egypt's interior ministry said, hours before the first anniversary of deposed president Mohamed Morsi's military ouster.

Police arrested one of two men who were in the car while the second managed to escape, interior ministry spokesman Hani Abdel Latif told Agence France Presse, adding that the cause of the blast was still unknown and there were no casualties.

The United Nations has launched an internal investigation into allegations that its joint peacekeeping mission in the troubled Darfur region has been covering up crimes by Sudanese forces against civilians.

The United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force UNAMID, which was established in 2007, is tasked foremost with protecting civilians and securing humanitarian aid for Sudan's Darfur, where violence has left nearly 300,000 dead and two million displaced.

Israel warned Hamas Thursday against any escalation in violence, reinforcing its Gaza border amid continued rocket fire and heightened tensions after three Israeli youths and a Palestinian teenager were murdered.

"We are looking for calm, not escalation, but if Hamas chooses to act against us, we shall be ready," armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said in remarks tweeted by the army.

The transfer of Syrian chemical weapons from a Danish container ship to a U.S. vessel was completed on Wednesday in an Italian port, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The disposal process marks the culmination of a program to rid Syria of its chemical weapons stockpile after the outcry that followed chemical attacks by the Bashar Assad regime in the suburbs of Damascus on August 23 last year, that may have killed as many as 1,400 people.

Top U.S. officials Wednesday upped pressure on key Iraqi leaders as political chaos in Baghdad clouded American hopes for a unity government to tackle the country's sectarian breakdown.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile widened the U.S. effort to convince key regional powers to prevail on Iraqi factions for a political settlement, calling Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.

The United Nations has complained to South Sudan and demanded an explanation after four local U.N. staff were prevented from taking a plane and had their passports confiscated.

The U.N. has often accused the warring forces in South Sudan of blocking U.N. peacekeepers as the civil war that has devastated the young nation continues to rage.

Interim Libyan prime minister Abdullah al-Thani announced the end Wednesday to the country's oil crisis, saying the authorities had regained control of two oil terminals that had been blocked by rebels.

He made the announcement at a joint press conference in Ras Lanuf with rebel leader Ibrahim Jodhran, who confirmed that the two ports had been opened.

Three Sukhoi ground attack jets shown landing in Iraq in a video released by the defense ministry are likely from Iran, a think tank said Wednesday.

Iraq has purchased more than a dozen Sukhoi jets from Russia in a bid to bolster its forces in their battle against a sweeping militant offensive that has overrun large areas of five provinces.