The United States has delivered two support ships to Iraq, which is seeking to boost its fledgling naval capabilities, the U.S. embassy said on Sunday.

The two 60-meter offshore support vessels were delivered by the U.S. navy on December 20, the embassy said.

Egypt has adopted a new, Islamist-backed constitution with nearly two-thirds support in a referendum preceded by weeks of sometimes bloody protests, official media said on Sunday.

The secular-leaning opposition, which has alleged fraud, was mulling its next move in its campaign against the text, which it says limits the freedoms of religious minorities and women. It was to hold a news conference later Sunday.

Egypt's cabinet denied on Saturday that the country's central bank head had stepped down, state television said, hours after reporting Faruq El-Okda's resignation.

There was no immediate explanation for the conflicting reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday welcomed the nomination of Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as U.S. secretary of state, calling him a well-known defender of Israeli security.

"I congratulate John Kerry on his nomination to the post of American secretary of state. Kerry, who has great experience, is a well-known defender of the security of Israel," he said in a statement issued by his office.

Hundreds of supporters of Tunisia's Islamist ruling party attacked members of a secular opposition party and besieged the hotel where they were meeting on Saturday, an AFP correspondent said.

The demonstrators brandishing banners hostile to the Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia) party first gathered outside the Hotel Midoune on Djerba island but then broke through a police cordon and stormed into the hotel.

Thousands of Shiite protesters in Bahrain Saturday demanded a transition government and the removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has been premier since 1974, witnesses said.

They said the demonstrators marched in the village of Diya near the capital Manama, chanting "Resign, Khalifa!" and waving Bahraini flags.

Egyptian Vice President Mahmoud Mekki announced his resignation on Saturday, the day of a referendum on a new constitution that leaves unclear whether his position would be maintained.

In a statement obtained by AFP, Mekki said he was stepping down because "political work does not suit my professional character as a judge."

A key opposition group said on Saturday that Syria's conflict is not sectarian, contradicting warnings earlier this week by a U.N. team that increasing sectarianism is threatening whole communities.

"The Syrian revolution is neither sectarian nor bloody," the Syrian National Council said, two days after U.N. investigators described the 21-month conflict as "overtly sectarian in nature."

A fire in a Yemeni prison known for its overcrowding killed eight inmates on Saturday, a security official said.

The blaze was reported in several rooms of the central prison in the city of Ibb, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Sanaa, the official added, without saying whether it was thought to have been started deliberately.

A car bomb blast in northeastern Damascus killed five men and wounded dozens of people on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"A car bomb blast in the district of Qaboon killed five men, wounded dozens of other people and caused widespread material damage," said the Britain-based watchdog.