A Tunis court on Monday sentenced ousted Tunisian president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in his absence to 15 years in jail for possession of arms, drugs and archaeological artifacts.

In his second trial, Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia following a popular uprising in January, was also sentenced to a fine of 78,500 dollars.

Syrian security forces killed two anti-regime protesters near Damascus and deployed tanks in a town near Turkey's border, activists said on Monday, as the authorities eyed the recapture of Hama.

More than 20 people were arrested on the outskirts of the flashpoint central city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that angry residents countered by burning tires and hurling stones.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit out at Western governments on Monday for "tearing apart" Sudan while rejecting the demands of separatists on their own soil, his website said.

"Enemies want to tear apart Sudan," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the southeastern port city of Chabahar ahead of south Sudan's proclamation of independence on Saturday.

The head of Libya's rebel council said Monday that there is now no possibility of Moammar Gadhafi being granted internal exile in Libya, following an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest.

In a statement, Mustafa Mohammed Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, said: "There is absolutely no current or future possibility for Gadhafi to remain in Libya."

Bomb and gun attacks across Iraq on Monday killed at least four people, including two policemen, and wounded 14 others, security officials said.

A car bomb blast outside a hospital in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, killed a policeman and a civilian, said police official Major Nuri al-Jumaili. Eight other people were wounded, five of them policemen.

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey dropped below 10,000 as hundreds more returned home, Turkish officials said Monday.

Some 405 Syrians went back to their country on Sunday and Monday, decreasing the total number of refugees in Turkey to 9,909, the country's disaster and emergency management agency said on its website.

Saboteurs bombed an Egyptian gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula on Monday, sending flames into the sky and cutting supplies to Israel and Jordan, a security official said.

Officials said a car had parked near the pipeline in the Bir al-Abd area, 80 kilometers from the north Sinai town of el-Arish, shortly before the explosion.

Turkey's top diplomat on Sunday recognized Libya's rebel council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, as he vowed to do "everything" possible to end the fighting.

Ahmet Davutoglu arrived in Benghazi, giving the National Transitional Council the much sought-after political and economic support of a major regional player and former colonial power.

Egypt's Nabil al-Arabi on Sunday formally replaced his compatriot Amr Moussa as secretary general of the Arab League, state media reported.

On May 15 Foreign Minister Arabi was selected to replace Moussa, whose 10-year tenure was due to expire and who harbors ambitions to run for the Egyptian presidency.

Some 100 Syrian independent figures met in the capital on Sunday to discuss a "third way" for the country, which has been rocked by anti-regime protests for three months, Agence France Presse reported.

It was the second such meeting of its kind in a week, after critics of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad vowed at an unprecedented gathering in Damascus last Monday to press ahead with a peaceful uprising.