Middle East News Headlines

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Four foreigners were arrested in Libya on suspicion of distributing books about Christianity and proselytizing, a Libyan police spokesman said on Saturday.

CAIRO (AP) — A court in Egypt has ordered a TV channel that airs belly dancing clips off the air for showing "sexually explicit" content and operating without a broadcast license.

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian security official said Saturday that the interior ministry has agreed to purchase 100,000 new 9mm pistols after low-ranking policemen went on strike demanding greater firepower to defend themselves against increased lawlessness.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli soldiers provided medical treatment to wounded Syrians who approached the countries' border and then transported them to a hospital in Israel for further treatment, the military said Saturday, in the first instance of Syrians finding shelter from their country's civil in the Jewish state.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A power outage plunged Damascus and southern Syria into darkness late Saturday, Syria's state news agency said, while anti-regime activists reported a string of tit-for-tat, sectarian kidnappings in the country's north.

BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Hezbollah said Saturday that he would not comment on a recent report from Bulgaria that said members of the Lebanese militant group carried out an attack that killed five Israeli tourists last summer, saying only that the "issue is being followed calmly and closely."

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian state news agency says power outage plunges Damascus and southern Syria into darkness.

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Thousands of supporters of the ruling Islamist party, waving banners and chanting, marched Saturday in the capital in response to rising criticism about Tunisia's direction two years after its revolution.

BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Hezbollah has refused to comment on a Bulgarian report that said members of the Lebanese militant group carried out an attack that killed five Israeli tourists in the European nation.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says troops have provided medical help to Syrians near the countries' border and transported them to a hospital in Israel for further treatment.

BEIRUT (AP) — Pro-government gunmen have kidnapped more than 300 people in northwestern Syria in retaliation for the abduction of 42 Shiite Muslims this week, a move that could fuel more sectarian violence in the country, an activist group said Saturday.

CAIRO (AP) — The head of Egypt's holding company for airports and aviation says President Mohammed Morsi's son has applied for a job that pays $133 a month starting salary.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's Supreme Leader said Saturday that his country was not seeking nuclear weapons, but that if Tehran intended to build them, the U.S. couldn't stop it.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A senior Iranian official has vowed to take revenge on Israel for its alleged involvement in the killing of a commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

BEIRUT (AP) — An activist group says pro-government gunmen have kidnapped more than 300 people in northwestern Syria in retaliation for the abduction of 42 Shiite Muslims this week.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber, pretending to ask for help, assassinated a senior Iraqi military official and three bodyguards at his home Saturday in the north, officials said.

CAIRO (AP) — Several thousand hard-line Islamists rallied in Cairo on Friday against a recent wave of violent anti-government protests, while liberal activists staged a smaller demonstration across town to call for accountability and justice from the country's leaders.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers on Friday at several demonstrations in the West Bank held to support a prisoner observing an intermittent hunger strike to protest his incarceration.