Thousands of Yemenis demonstrated in the capital on Thursday, calling on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to depart after being in power since 1978, Agence France Presse reported.

"Enough being in power for (over) 30 years," chanted protesters in demonstrations staged by the Common Forum opposition in four different locations in Sanaa.

At least 1,000 people have been detained in Egypt since Tuesday, in the most serious protests against President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rule, a security official said on Thursday, as activists vowed to continue rallying.

"At least 1,000 people have been detained around the country since the demonstrations started," on Tuesday, the official told Agence France Presse.

Egyptian police and protesters clashed in the center of the capital and in the port city of Suez on Wednesday, the second day of anti-government rallies that had been threatened with a massive security crackdown.

With the interior ministry having banned all protests, police fired tear gas at hundreds of people gathered near the journalists' syndicate in Cairo demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

Tunisia said Wednesday it had issued an international arrest warrant for ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who resigned this month amid protests against his regime and fled to Saudi Arabia.

The justice ministry said Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi and other members of his once all-powerful family were accused of illegally acquiring assets and transferring funds abroad during the veteran leader's 23-year regime.

Three Kuwaiti opposition MPs on Monday filed to question the interior minister in parliament over the death of a man in a police station allegedly as a result of severe torture.

The request, filed by Waleed al-Tabtabai, Shuaib al-Muwaizri and Salem al-Namlan, contends that Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber Khaled al-Sabah was politically responsible for the man's death.

Iran hanged on Monday two activists it said were members of an exiled group opposed to the 2009 presidential poll result, despite U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging that they be freed.

The executions were the first reported hangings of protesters who staged demonstrations against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a poll they said was rigged.

Two car bombs struck Shiite pilgrims Monday in an Iraqi holy city, killing at least 18 people as crowds massed for religious rituals marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for the Islamic sect's most beloved saint.

The blasts in Karbala were the latest in nearly a week of attacks that have killed at least 159 people. The uptick in violence has shattered a lengthy period of calm and raised anew concerns about the readiness of Iraqi forces to take over their own security ahead of a full withdrawal by the U.S. military.

Egyptian Interior Minister Habib al-Adly said on Sunday that a Palestinian group was behind the New Year's church attack in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria that killed more than 20 people.

"The Palestinian Islamic Army, which has links to Al-Qaida, is behind the attack on the al-Qiddissin church in Alexandria," Adly said in a speech to mark Police Day, carried live on state television.

Car bombs killed six people and wounded 30 in and around Baghdad on Sunday, an Iraqi interior ministry official said.

The attacks came after a spate of violence across Iraq last week killed 116 people, breaking a relative calm that had settled after the formation of a new government a month ago.

Some 1,000 demonstrators from rural central Tunisia, calling for the resignation of the transitional government, reached the capital on Sunday.

The marchers, from a poor farming region where an uprising against authoritarian rule began last month, called for the resignation of a government put in place after the ouster of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.