At least 11 people were killed and more than 50 others injured on Wednesday in violent Afghan demonstrations over the deaths of four people in a NATO raid, an official said.

"Now we have 11 dead and over 50 other people admitted with injuries to hospital," acting provincial health director, Hassan Basij, told Agence France Presse.

U.S. President Barack Obama will Thursday seek to sketch a plausible policy response to the sudden, complex and often contradictory demands thrown up by an "Arab Spring" of popular revolt.

In a major speech, Obama will seek to quell domestic criticism and uncertainty in the Middle East and North Africa about the exact nature of U.S. policy.

Two policemen were killed and five others were wounded Wednesday when dozens of Taliban militants attacked a Pakistan police check post in the northwestern capital Peshawar, police said.

Police said they had initially repelled an attack by a group of armed Taliban on a security check post in Sarband, a suburban area of Peshawar around midnight (19:00 GMT Tuesday).

Pakistani security forces have arrested senior al-Qaida operative Mohammed Ali Qassem Yaaqoub -- alias Abu Sohaib al-Makki -- in the southern port city of Karachi, the military said Tuesday.

"According to preliminary investigations, al-Makki is a Yemeni national and has been working directly under al-Qaida leaders along Pak-Afghan borders," the military's media wing said.

Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Dublin Tuesday for the first trip by a British monarch to the Irish Republic as the discovery of a bomb near the capital underscored the threat from republican hardliners.

Sporting a coat and hat in the emerald green of her hosts, the queen landed at a military airbase for a landmark four-day state visit surrounded by the biggest ever security operation mounted by the republic.

Australia Tuesday blocked a call from a leading Muslim group for the introduction of a non-extremist version of sharia law, saying local legislation would always win in any clash of cultural values.

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils had urged the government to consider "legal pluralism" for Muslims in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into a new policy on multiculturalism.

Pakistan and the United States sought Monday to smooth a damaging row caused by Osama bin Laden's killing, calling for closer cooperation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton poised to visit.

Pakistan's civilian and military leaders were left angry and embarrassed over a unilateral U.S. raid on May 2 that discovered and killed al-Qaida's chief living, possibly for years, two hours' drive from the Pakistani capital.

British police received a bomb threat for London from dissident Irish republicans Monday, on the eve of a historic trip by Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland.

The warning heightened tensions after a spike in violence in Northern Ireland and a statement by a top paramilitary group that the British monarch was wanted for "war crimes."

Three days of rioting linked to last month's presidential elections in Nigeria left at least 800 people dead, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

"Deadly election-related and communal violence in northern Nigeria following the April 2011 presidential voting left more than 800 people dead... The victims were killed in three days of rioting in 12 northern states," the New York-based rights watchdog said in a statement.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's reputation with women earned him the nickname "the great seducer," and not even an affair with a subordinate could knock the International Monetary Fund leader off a political path pointed in the direction of the French presidency. All that changed with charges that he sexually assaulted a maid in his hotel room, a case that generated shock and revulsion, especially in his home country.

Police said the maid picked Strauss-Kahn out of a lineup. Unless the charges are quickly dropped, they could destroy his chances in a presidential race that is just starting to heat up.