NATO will not take "political leadership" of the international coalition in Libya but will have a planning and operational role to enforce a U.N.-backed no-fly zone, the French foreign minister said Wednesday.

"NATO will intervene as a tool for planning and operational action" in applying the no-fly zone provided for in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, Alain Juppe said at a press conference.

Bahraini airlines have suspended flights to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, where Shiite communities have criticized the kingdom's response to Shiite-led protests in the Gulf state, the airlines said Wednesday.

On Friday, Bahrain carried out a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists demonstrating since February 14 in the tiny Shiite-majority, Sunni-ruled kingdom.

The situation in Bahrain is at a "very dangerous stage" Bahrain Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa told Turkish TV channel NTV Wednesday.

"What is happening in Bahrain is now at a very dangerous stage. There is stability but, we are absolutely afraid of the division between religious communities," Al-Khalifa told in an interview with over-voice translation. Al-Khalifa said Turkey and Bahrain should have a common policy on the division between religious communities in the Islamic world.

Egypt's stock exchange on Wednesday plummeted nearly 10% after reopening for the first time since January 27 at the start of an uprising that brought down long-time president Hosni Mubarak.

The main EGX-30 index shed 560.87 points to be at 5,085.63 within little more than one minute of reopening, prompting officials to suspend trading for half an hour in line with emergency regulations.

Yemeni MPs on Wednesday approved a state of emergency declared by President Ali Abdullah Saleh who faces escalating demands for his ouster.

In total, 163 MPs out of the 164 who attended a special parliamentary session voted for the measure, announced by the president last Friday, hours after regime loyalists in Sanaa gunned down 52 protesters near the university.

Gaza militants fired seven mortar shells into southern Israel early on Wednesday, just hours after they fired a Grad rocket into the heart of the southern city of Beersheva, the army said.

The seven mortar shells landed in the Eshkol region which lies just northeast of the coastal enclave, causing no injuries or damage, the army said.

Saudi Arabia is to hold municipal elections from April 23 at a time of pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world, the official SPA news agency announced.

"A committee has been formed... to oversee next month’s municipal council elections," it said in an official announcement late on Tuesday, adding that polling by regions would kick off on April 23.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi defiantly claimed in TV comments aired on the fourth day of U.N.-backed military strikes on Libya that his country is "ready for battle," while Western leaders Wednesday planned their next steps.

"We will win this battle," footage showed Gadhafi telling supporters at his Bab Al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli that was the target of a coalition missile strike.

Syrian security forces fired on anti-regime protesters near a mosque on Wednesday, killing five and wounding scores, rights activists said as the government blamed a "gang" for the violence.

Hundreds of people had gathered at the Omari mosque, the focus of rallies in the flashpoint southern town of Daraa since Friday, to prevent police from storming it. Security had been beefed up after they set up tents to camp there.

The Turkish authorities have seized rifles on a Syria-bound Iranian plane, grounded since the weekend, and questioned its seven-man crew, police and judicial sources said Tuesday.

The cargo plane, a civilian Ilyushin, was ordered to land in Diyarbakir, in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, on Saturday night on suspicion that it had military or illicit cargo on board.