Jewish settlers have started building at least 600 homes since the end of a building ban on September 26, Peace Now said on Thursday.

"In our estimation, building has started on between 600 and 700 new housing units in less than one month, which is four times the pace of construction since before the freeze," Peace Now's Hagit Ofran told AFP, referring to the moratorium that began at the end of November 2009.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saudi King Abdullah have had telephonic discussions on regional affairs for a second time within a fortnight, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported Thursday.

The Wednesday evening conversation comes at a time when the two regional arch-rivals are at odds over what is perceived as rising Iranian influence in Lebanese politics and protracted efforts to form a government in Iraq.

A bomb attack Monday in central Baghdad on a government convoy killed a provincial councilor and wounded eight other people, including three bodyguards, an interior ministry official said.

"Jassem Ali Mahmud was killed and three of his bodyguards and five passersby were wounded when a bomb exploded as their convoy passed through Khulani neighborhood," the official said.

Saudi security services warned several days ago about an al-Qaida threat to Europe and in particular France, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said Sunday.

Several days ago European intelligence agencies received "a new message from the Saudi services which indicated that al-Qaida's branch on the Arabian Peninsula was possibly active or planned to be active" and was targeting "the European continent and in particular France", Hortefeux said in a radio and television interview.

A Yemeni court sentenced to death convicted Al-Qaida bombmaker Saleh al-Shawsh on Monday amid a mounting battle between the security forces and the local branch of the jihadist network.

"God willing, your end will come at our hands and the start will be from Abyan," Shawsh shouted from the dock as the judge handed down the sentence.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was in Tehran on Monday to garner support for his premiership bid, as his chief rival Iyad Allawi accused Iran of meddling in Baghdad's political affairs.

Maliki on arriving in Tehran Monday morning went straight into a series of meetings, including with Iran's first vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi and with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to local media.

A bomb attack Monday in central Baghdad on a government convoy killed a provincial councilor and wounded eight other people, including three bodyguards, an interior ministry official said.

"Jassem Ali Mahmud was killed and three of his bodyguards and five passersby were wounded when a bomb exploded as their convoy passed through Khulani neighborhood," the official said.

A Frenchman murdered by a security guard in Yemen at the Austrian company where they worked was killed in a terrorist crime rather than for personal reasons as first claimed, the interior minister said on Saturday.

"The investigation has revealed that this was a terrorist crime, whose perpetrator had contacts with elements of Al-Qaida," official media quoted Motahar Rashad al-Masri as saying without elaborating.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is fighting to keep his job after an inconclusive March 7 general election, is to visit neighboring Iran soon, a close aide said on Saturday.

"The prime minister will visit Iran soon but I cannot confirm when," the official from Maliki's office told AFP.

Australia has lifted its travel warning for Yemen to its highest possible level, saying there was a "very high threat of terrorist attack" in the Arabian peninsula's poorest nation.

The updated travel advisory released late Friday comes just days after United States President Barack Obama warned that Al-Qaida was pursuing a "murderous agenda" in the increasingly violent state.