AL-QAEDA

Muammar Gaddafi vowed defiantly on Friday to triumph over his enemies, vigorously urging supporters in Tripoli's Green Square to protect the Libyan nation and its petroleum interests.

Libyan dictator Gaddafi reiterates 'hallucinogenic drugs' blame to justify violence against protesters even as a close aide withdraws support.

Oil traders are citing unconfirmed rumors that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was shot to explain a sudden downward reversal in oil prices today.

Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi launched a counter-attack on Thursday, fighting fierce gun battles with rebels who have threatened the Libyan leader by seizing important towns close to the capital.

The leader of Libya Moammar Gaddafi has appeared on state TV and alleged that al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden and his followers are behind the protests and revolts in the country.

U.S. drone strikes killed at least 11 people on Monday in tribal regions along Pakistan's western border, local officials said.

Protesters in Bahrain appeared to gain the initiative on Saturday and mourners buried their dead in western Libya as the wave of protest washing across the Arab world tested more of the region's longtime rulers.

Fierce clashes between protesters and government loyalists left at least 40 wounded in Yemen on Thursday, the seventh day of demonstrations demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule.

Unrest spread across the Middle East and North Africa on Thursday as Bahrain launched a swift military crackdown on anti-government protesters and clashes were reported in Libya and Yemen.

ABC news reporter Miguel Marquez was caught by an angry mob in the Bahrain capital of Manama and beaten up.

An American jailed for shooting two Pakistanis is shielded by diplomatic immunity, a Pakistani official said Wednesday, but local courts are likely have the final say in a case that has ignited a bruising row between two strategic allies.

Anti-government protests inspired by popular revolts that toppled rulers in Tunisia and Egypt are gaining pace around the Middle East and North Africa despite political and economic concessions by nervous governments.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday Pakistan must respect the diplomatic immunity of a U.S. consular employee jailed for shooting dead two Pakistanis, in a case straining ties between the allies.

A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of a Florida doctor who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for providing material support and offering treatment to wounded Al Qaeda militants.

Hundreds of anti-government demonstrators clashed with supporters of Yemen's president on Monday south of the capital, with both sides hurling rocks as protests escalated in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.

The army will need to stay on the streets until a disgraced police force recovers from the heavy damage inflicted by Egypt's turmoil -- an uncomfortable burden for a military designed to fight foreign enemies, not crime. A quick redeployment of the police, which largely dissolved in the first days of the unrest, is a priority for the military command that took control from former President Hosni Mubarak on Friday. It will not be easy.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters, inspired by the mass uprising in Egypt, clashed with police blocking them from marching to Yemen's presidential palace in Sanaa on Sunday, witnesses said.

Yemen, the poorest nation in the Middle East, has witnessed its third straight day of anti-government protests as hundreds of demonstrators squared off against police in the capital city of Sanaa.

Inspired by Egypt, at least 2,000 protesters broke the barriers set up around the May First Square in the capital city of Algiers on Saturday

A group of prominent business executives and national security figures will visit China next month as part of their drive to reduce U.S. dependence on oil.

A 12-year-old boy in a school uniform blew himself up at a Pakistani army recruitment centre on Thursday, killing 31 cadets, officials said, in an attack that challenges government assertions that it has weakened militants.