Yemeni security forces shot dead 15 anti-regime demonstrators and wounded scores more on Monday, on the second day of lethal clashes in Taez, south of the capital, medics said.

"The death toll has gone up to 15," said Sadeq al-Shujaa, head of a makeshift field hospital at a square in central Taez, updating an earlier casualty toll.

A blinding dust storm hit Kuwait on Monday forcing a halt in oil exports which an official said would not affect commitments to clients, while air traffic was completely halted.

A spokesman for Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) said oil exports were stopped and would resume when weather conditions improve.

The Libyan rebels' Transitional National Council on Monday rejected any transition under Moammar Gadhafi's sons after The New York Times reported that two of them had proposed that.

"This is completely rejected by the council," its spokesman Shamseddin Abdulmelah said in the rebels' stronghold in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a telephone conversation has asked the U.N. chief to stop U.S. and Europe "intervention" in the region, the website of his office reported on Monday.

"The intervention of some European countries and America in the regional nations increases concern and makes circumstances more complicated," Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Israeli army on Monday deployed a second battery of its Iron Dome short-range missile defense system, this time around the southern port city of Ashkelon, a military spokeswoman said.

"This battery was deployed around Ashkelon for security reasons, this is the second system to become operational after the deployment around Beersheva," she said, without giving further details.

Gulf Arab monarchies including Saudi Arabia denounced Iran's "flagrant interference" in regional affairs and said Tehran was destabilizing their countries, at a ministerial meeting overnight Saturday.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers said in a statement they were "deeply worried about continuing Iranian meddling" in their region.

About 4,000 people demonstrated in Morocco's biggest city Casablanca Sunday to demand more democracy and reform, an Agence France Presse reporter said, in the latest in a wave of protests.

Police said about 2,500 people took part in the demonstrations while organizers put the figure at 10,000.

The oil town of Brega saw heavy fighting on Sunday as rebel forces advanced only to fall back again after being ambushed by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, who was hit by another defection.

Former foreign minister and U.N. General Assembly president Ali Treiki became the latest official to abandon Gadhafi, after the flight to Britain of foreign minister and regime stalwart Moussa Koussa earlier in the week.

Gulf Arab foreign ministers were to meet Sunday in the Saudi capital to discuss Iranian interference after Arab world unrest spilled over into some of the region's Western-backed monarchies.

Abdul Latif al-Zayani, the Gulf Cooperation Council's new secretary general, condemned "Iran's meddling in the internal affairs of GCC countries" on the eve of the meeting, saying it "threatened security and stability in the region".

Yemeni police killed an anti-regime protester and wounded scores more on Sunday, medics and witnesses said, as President Ali Abdullah Saleh called for an end to protests demanding that he step down.

They said security forces shot dead a young man seen tearing up a poster of Saleh at a demonstration in Taez, some 200 kilometers south of the capital.