An Islamist group calling itself Al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility on the Internet for a deadly suicide bombing in Damascus this week, the SITE Monitoring Service said on Sunday.

Al-Nusra Front named the bomber as Abu Omar al-Shami, and said he detonated his payload when members of the Syrian security forces who had assembled for Friday prayers in the Midan neighborhood had peaked to 150.

The head of Egypt's ruling military has told parliament speaker Saad al-Katatni he will reshuffle the government on Sunday ahead of next month's presidential election, the Muslim Brotherhood website said.

"Field Marshal (Hussein) Tantawi tells Katatni he will reshuffle the government in the coming hours," the site said.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said on Sunday that the case of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is to be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.

Meshaal told journalists in Cairo that he had agreed on the course of action in talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.

The head of Libya's National Transitional Council said on Sunday that the interim government would stay in place, notably to ensure the success of June elections for a constituent assembly.

"Because of concerns about stability and building the state during this delicate stage... and to guarantee the success of the election... the council has decided to keep on the interim government," NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil told reporters.

A Saudi Arabian F-15 warplane has crashed during a training mission in the northwest of the kingdom, but its pilot was able to eject and was safe, the official SPA news agency reported on Sunday.

The aircraft went down on Saturday in the Tabuk region, the agency said, adding that an investigation had begun to determine the cause of the crash.

Major General Robert Mood, head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria, called on all sides to "stop the violence" upon his arrival in Damascus on Sunday.

"To achieve the success of the Kofi Annan plan, I call on all sides to stop violence and help us continue the cessation of armed violence," Mood told reporters.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi indicated on Sunday that he was mediating in a diplomatic spat between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, calling it a "passing phase."

Riyadh on Saturday recalled its ambassador from Cairo after angry protests outside the Saudi embassy in Cairo over an Egyptian human rights lawyer arrested in the Gulf kingdom.

A Bahraini minor was held in custody for assaulting a police officer and taking part in a street gathering in a village south of the capital Manama, his lawyers said in a statement Sunday.

Sayed Yasin Abduljalil, 13, appeared before a juvenile judge, who ordered his detention until Thursday for "assaulting a police officer... inciting violence" and "gathering" in public areas, said the statement.

A nearly three-month long hunger strike has turned activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, awaiting a final court ruling on Monday along with 14 other jailed activists, into a symbol of Bahrain's uprising that began last year.

One of their lawyers told Agence France Presse on Sunday that he expects the case, now in Bahrain's highest appeals court, the Court of Cessation, to be reviewed.

More than 90 people were wounded in overnight clashes between Salafist protesters and residents of a Cairo neighborhood, the Egyptian health ministry said on Sunday.

Dozens of supporters of Hazem Abu Ismail on Saturday night marched towards the Abbassiya district to protest the electoral commission's decision to bar the popular hardline Islamist from contesting next month's presidential poll.