Israel announced on Monday it was calling off a United Nations investigative mission to the Old City in annexed east Jerusalem because of Palestinian efforts to politicize the visit.

"Israel has canceled the delegation," which was due to have arrived the same day, a foreign ministry official told Agence France Presse

A Bahraini court sentenced nine Shiites to jail terms ranging between 10 and 15 years on Monday after convicting them of forming a "terrorist" group, a judicial source said.

Cleric Ahmed al-Majed and a second defendant were jailed for 15 years, while a third defendant was sentenced to 10 years.

An Algerian court sentenced 14 Malian members of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) to 20 years' jail for arms smuggling and entering the country illegally, El Khabar daily reported Monday.

The Malians, who were sentenced on Sunday by the criminal court in the southern town of Ouargla, were accused of entering Algeria illegally with a shipment of weapons from Libya, the Arabic-language daily said.

An Egyptian police camp came under fire with heavy weapons on Monday in the Sinai, where tensions have been running high since last week's kidnapping of security personnel, a security official said.

The official, quoted by state news agency MENA, said assailants opened fire "for 25 minutes using heavy weapons" against El-Ahrash camp in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, without reporting casualties.

Tunisian police arrested some 200 members of the hardline Islamist Ansar al-Sharia in weekend clashes that erupted after a ban on their congress, Prime Minister Ali Larayedh said in remarks published on Monday.

"Those who have been arrested number 200," Larayedh said at the Doha Forum in the Gulf state of Qatar, quoted by the Arabic daily al-Hayat.

An apparent U.S. drone strike killed two suspected al-Qaida militants in central Yemen on Monday, a local official said.

The attack took place in the Khobza area of the central province of Baida, the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that an American drone launched the attack.

Shots fired from Syria hit the central Israeli-occupied Golan Heights overnight, a military spokeswoman said Monday morning, causing no harm or damage.

According to the spokeswoman, the shots were from small arms, and "most likely were stray bullets, we don't know if it was intentional."

Two days of bombings, attacks on police and a botched hostage rescue killed 50 people in Iraq, among them 24 police who died as security sharply deteriorates in Anbar province, officials said Monday.

Anbar, to the west of Baghdad, is home to two of the main centers of Sunni anti-government protests that broke out almost five months ago, and has since seen a number of attacks on security forces.

Several prisoners in Bahrain escaped Sunday from a prison van that was smashed into by two cars whose occupants helped them flee in an assault south of the capital Manama, an official said.

The unprecedented attack was carried out by "outlaws", the prison official said, indicating that the escapees were "involved in security issues" -- Shiites accused of violence during protests that have rocked the Gulf state.

The United Arab Emirates on Sunday called for political action to stop what it called "the repressive machine" in Damascus, ahead of an international conference aimed at resolving the Syrian conflict.

"We call on all concerned parties to take decisive political action to stop the repressive machine in Damascus," UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan said at a news conference with his Australian counterpart Bob Carr.