Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia have all urged their citizens to leave the Libyan city of Benghazi due to a "specific, imminent threat to Westerners,” linked to French action in Mali.

Britain's warning Thursday sparked an angry response from Libya's government, which said there was "no new intelligence" to justify such concerns in the eastern city.

Yemen said on Thursday that the co-founder and second-in-command of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Saudi national Saeed al-Shehri, had died.

The Supreme National Security Committee said Shehri had succumbed to wounds received in a counter-terrorism operation in the northern Saada province on November 28.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon made a fresh appeal to members of the Security Council on Thursday to overcome their divisions and find a solution to the bloody civil war in Syria.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ban said it would be an "abdication" of the world body's responsibilities if it fails to unify over the crisis that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

The results of Israel's election keep premier Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud-Beitenu list the largest in parliament with 31 seats ahead of Yair Lapid's centrist Yesh Atid at 19, an official said on Thursday.

The central election committee spokesman said in a statement that the third largest party was Shelly Yachimovich's Labor with 15 seats, with the far-right Jewish Home winning 12 mandates in the 120-seat Knesset.

Almost 150 people, mostly children, were injured by fireworks in Tripoli set off to celebrate the Prophet Mohammed's birthday, hospital sources said on Thursday.

"On Wednesday night we received more than 120 victims, mostly children, who suffered from burns of varying degrees," news agency LANA quoted Bashir al-Shawess of Tripoli's burns hospital as saying.

Tribal leaders, pro-regime loyalists and independent businessmen swept Jordan's parliamentary election that was shunned by Islamists, according to preliminary results released on Thursday.

Analysts say the new parliament will now be dominated by loyalists who will resist pressure for real political reform.

Archbishop Nurhan Manougian has been elected the 97th Armenian Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, one of the five custodians of Christian religious sites in the Holy Land, sources told AFP on Thursday.

Manougian, 65, replaces Torkom Manougian, who died aged 93 in October 2012, after falling into a coma following a stroke.

The mayor of the Iraqi town where a suicide bomber killed 42 people at a funeral said on Thursday that the attack was launched by a man disguised as a cleric.

The bomber struck Wednesday at a Shiite mosque in Tuz Khurmatu, 175 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, targeting the funeral of the relative of a politician.

Police clashed with protesters in Cairo Thursday, eve of the the second anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, as they tried to dismantle a security barrier and called for the fall of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, an AFP correspondent said.

A few dozens men and youths tried to dismantle the wall of concrete blocks that blocked a street leading to Tahrir Square, focal point of demonstrations that broke out on January 25, 2010 and led to Mubarak's resignation 18 days later.

A delegation from the U.N. Security Council was due in Sanaa on Sunday to discuss Yemen's bumpy political transition process, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told AFP.

The delegation would meet with Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi and members of the national consensus government, formed after former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to cede power following a year-long uprising in 2011, Qirbi said.