A "revolutionary front" of Sudanese rebels seeking to overthrow President Omar al-Bashir asked Libya to arrest the accused war criminal during his visit to Tripoli that began on Saturday.

Bashir arrived in the Libyan capital for his first visit since the country's long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed last year.

Hundreds of Bahrainis gathered on Saturday for a demonstration called by the Shiite-led opposition defying a ban by police.

Cleric Sheikh Ali Salman, who heads the main Shiite opposition formation al-Wefaq, appeared along with leading opposition figures among the protesters, according to rights activist Yousif al-Mahafda and footage posted on social networks.

23 Syrian civilians were shot dead on Saturday as the regime held funerals on Saturday for 26 people killed in a Damascus suicide bombing that it called a "terrorist attack," promising an "iron fist" response to the second such incident in two weeks.

Local Coordination Committees announced that Syrian security forces shot dead 23 civilians including a child.

A visit by Gaza's Hamas leader has angered the official Palestinian representatives in Tunisia who say they were ignored during the talks with the new government, a Palestinian source said Saturday.

Ismail Haniya, prime minister in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, visited Tunis Thursday to meet with the new moderate Islamist-led administration while he was on a tour of the region.

A top Arab League official said on Saturday the group has no plans to withdraw its observers from Syria where they are charged with assessing whether the regime is keeping a deal to end the deadly violence.

"No plan to withdraw the observers is on the agenda of the Arab ministerial committee meeting on Syria" in the Egyptian capital on Sunday, the pan-Arab body's deputy secretary general, Adnan Issa, told Agence France Presse.

Britain's newest warship is heading to the Gulf for its first mission at a time of tensions over Iran's threat to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key transport route for oil.

The Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyer HMS Daring, which has a "stealth" design to help avoid detection by radar, is to join other British ships in the region, the Ministry of Defense confirmed Saturday.

Iran, Syria's main ally, on Saturday condemned a deadly suicide bombing in Damascus that left at least 26 people dead.

Iran "strongly condemns the terrorist attack on Friday in Damascus and sympathizes with the victims' families," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the media.

Bomb attacks against police and Shiite pilgrims in central Iraq on Saturday killed four people, two officers and two worshippers, and wounded 10 others, officials said.

Moammar Gadhafi caused great suffering among the Sudanese people, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir said Saturday on his first visit to Libya since Gadhafi was overthrown and killed.

Wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and war crimes in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, Bashir said that after Libya, Gadhafi inflicted the most damage in Sudan, the official WAL news agency reported.

Russia on Saturday said it was concerned after Egyptian prosecutors demanded a death sentence for fallen dictator Hosni Mubarak, calling for humanitarian factors to be considered.

"Such announcements are heard in Moscow with concern," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.