Tunisia's interior ministry banned a rally in Tunis on Saturday by a controversial militia linked to the ruling Islamist Ennahda party but dozens flaunted the order and gathered anyway.

A branch of the League for the Protection of the Revolution in the capital's suburb of Kram had called for the rally to demand that a controversial bill on the "immunization" of the revolution be adopted quickly.

Iraq's defense ministry said on Saturday it has broken up an al-Qaida cell that was working to produce poison gas for attacks within the country as well as in Europe and North America.

The group of five people built two facilities in Baghdad to produce sarin and mustard gas, using instructions from another al-Qaida group, spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told a news conference.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday demanded that both sides battling for the strategic Syrian town of Qusayr allow civilians to flee the fighting, his spokesman said.

"He urges all sides to do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties," Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said in a statement.

An Egyptian court on Saturday ordered the release of two policemen accused in the 2010 death of Khaled Said, who became a symbol of the fight against police torture, judicial sources said.

In the opening hearing of the retrial of Mahmud Salah Mahmud and Awad Ismail Suleiman, the Alexandria Criminal Court ordered both men freed because their preventative detention had expired.

Two air strikes that targeted two vehicles in south Yemen on Saturday killed seven suspected members of Al-Qaida and wounded two more, a local official said.

The attacks by the Yemeni air force hit the vehicles on the outskirts of the town of Mahfad in Abyan province, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The worst violence since 2008 hit Iraq in May, raising fears of all-out sectarian strife, as political leaders were to meet on Saturday for talks on persistent disputes that have paralyzed the government.

Iraqi authorities have failed to bring the wave of unrest under control, and have so far not addressed the underlying political issues that analysts say are driving the attacks, while the U.N. envoy has warned that the violence is "ready to explode".

Top U.S. diplomat John Kerry spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about settlements and the Mideast peace process, the State Department said Friday.

The calls -- Thursday with Netanyahu and Friday with Abbas -- come on the heels of a State Department warning directed at Israel that continued settlement activity in east Jerusalem was "counterproductive" to efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.

The family of a U.S. woman believed to have been killed in Syria was anxiously awaiting news of her fate Friday, after reports that she was shot dead by regime forces near the border with Turkey.

"Keep us in your prayers," Carole Mansfield told Agence France Presse as she awaited confirmation from U.S. officials that her granddaughter, Nicole Lynn Mansfield, was among three Westerners reportedly killed on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah traveled to Morocco on Friday for an "official visit", state news agency SPA reported, refuting rumors that the octogenarian monarch's health was deteriorating.

The king, who was born in 1924, has spent time in Morocco recovering after operations in recent years.

The remains of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israelis in fighting following the 1948 foundation of the Israeli state have been found in a mass grave in Tel Aviv's Jaffa district.

An official at the Muslim cemetery there told Agence France Presse that the grisly find occurred on Wednesday when ground subsided as workers carried out renovations, revealing six chambers full of skeletons.