Candidates in Iran's June 14 presidential election all agree that rampant inflation is the most pressing problem, but commentators Saturday bemoaned that in a first television debate none proposed real solutions.

Press commentators accepted the complaints of several candidates that the Friday debate's format, which gave little scope for real discussion of issues, had not helped them present their policies.

Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Syria's former ally Turkey on Saturday of "terrorizing" his own people and called on him to resign.

"The demands of the Turkish people do not justify this violence, and if Erdogan is incapable of using non-violent methods, then he should quit," state television cited Zohbi as saying after rioting in Istanbul.

The two daughters of a missing Italian journalist on Saturday launched a video appeal asking Syrians to help them find their father who disappeared while on a mission in the war-torn country.

"We are the daughters of the Italian journalist and correspondent Domenico Quirico for La Stampa newspaper who disappeared in Syria 50 days ago," Metella and Eleonora said in the video posted on the daily's website.

The Syrian army backed by Hizbullah fighters bolstered its positions in the embattled opposition stronghold of Qusayr on Saturday, as rebels prepared for a renewed assault, raising fears for trapped civilians.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition issued a statement saluting rebel fighters in the town, including new battalions that have arrived in recent days.

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".