Russia called on Syria Monday to immediately accept demands by the International Committee for the Red Cross for a daily two-hour humanitarian truce after talks with the Geneva-based body's head.

The crucial backing from Moscow to exert stronger pressure on its Soviet-era ally came after ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger huddled with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for about 90 minutes.

Turkey is working relentlessly to locate and repatriate two journalists missing in Syria for about 10 days, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday, amid reports one of them had been tortured.

"We sadly do not know where they are and we do not have any confirmed information. But we are working round the clock to find them and bring them back to Turkey safe and sound," he told a news conference.

An Egyptian military court on Monday acquitted Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaida's leader Ayman, overturning a death sentence in a new trial, his lawyer and his son told Agence France Presse.

The court also acquitted Mohammed Islambouli, whose Islamist brother Khaled assassinated president Anwar Sadat in 1981, they said. They had been convicted of planning militant attacks.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday he felt encouraged by Russia's position on Syria after trying to secure stronger pressure from Moscow on its Soviet-era ally.

ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger huddled with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for about 90 minutes before flying to Brussels to ask NATO members to exert similar influence with Syria's rebel forces.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat on Monday condemned an attack by an unidentified gunman who killed four people at a Jewish school in France, including an Israeli-French dual citizen.

"We strongly condemn all terrorist operations, and in particular the attack today in Toulouse," he said in an statement.

Libya's vice-premier said Monday his country was determined to have Moammar Gadhafi’s ex-spy chief, also wanted by the International Criminal Court, extradited to stand trial on home soil.

"We are determined to get (Abdullah) Senussi back, because this man has committed crimes against Libyans. He must answer to these in Libya, in front of Libyan courts," Mustafa Abu Shagur said on arrival in Mauritania where Senussi was arrested Friday.

A team of experts dispatched by U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan has arrived in Syria, where it will remain as long as progress is made on a monitoring operation to end the bloodshed, a spokesman said Monday.

"The mission has arrived. There are five people with expertise in political, peacekeeping and mediation," Ahmed Fawzi, spokesman for Annan told Agence France Presse.

Tens of thousands of loyalists of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rallied in south Iraq Monday decrying poor services and rampant graft on the ninth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion against Saddam Hussein.

Protesters flooded the center of the southern port city of Basra for the rally, with demonstrators waving Iraqi flags and portraits of the anti-U.S. Shiite cleric and his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, killed in 1999 by assailants thought to have been sent by Saddam.

A powerful sandstorm blowing over the Gulf has disrupted air traffic in Yemen, and closed schools and sent hundreds of people to hospital with respiratory problems in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi ministry of education announced on Monday the closure of schools in the north, east and south-west of the desert kingdom, a day after similar measures were taken in the capital Riyadh, the official SPA news agency reported.

Two more generals have fled Syria and linked up with rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus, a Turkish diplomat said on Monday.

The latest defections mean a total of nine generals have deserted since the revolt against Assad's rule erupted a year ago, many of them seeking refuge in neighboring Turkey.