Hundreds of Israeli police are taking part in a training exercise in preparation for potentially large-scale Palestinian protests in September, a police spokesman said on Tuesday.

"There's an exercise that the police are carrying out... in order to deal with public order, maintaining public order, and dealing with widespread disturbances," spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

Insurgents set off two car bombs and two suicide blasts, killing at least seven, in an al-Qaida style raid on government offices in central Iraq on Tuesday, mirroring a similar attack in March.

The dozens of gunmen taking part in the mayhem in Diyala's provincial capital of Baqouba also exchanged gunfire with Iraqi security forces, with officials warning that the toll, which included 17 wounded, could rise.

A U.S.-Israeli citizen being held in Egypt on espionage charges is not a spy, Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli military radio on Tuesday.

"I can say categorically that this student, who may have behaved bizarrely and irresponsibly, has no ties with Israeli, American or even lunar intelligence services," Lieberman said.

Russia and China boycotted U.N. Security Council talks on a draft resolution condemning Syria's deadly crackdown on opposition protests, diplomats said Monday.

European powers stepped up their campaigning meanwhile for the resolution with one top envoy saying the delay in Security Council action has cost hundreds of lives in Syria.

The U.S. House of Representatives vote late Monday to prohibit the use of funds for American military operations in Libya.

Lawmakers adopted the amendment to a military appropriations bill by a vote of 248 to 163.

The trial of ousted Tunisian leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, in exile in Saudi Arabia, will start in his absence on June 20, interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi told al-Jazeera Monday.

"I am announcing it for the first time, the trial will start on the 20th", Essebsi told the television channel.

The motorcade of Jordan's king came under a rare stoning attack in the south on Monday, a security official said in comments denied by both the palace and government a day after the monarch vowed to enhance reforms.

"(The rear) part of King Abdullah II's motorcade was attacked with stones and empty bottles by a group of men in their 20s and 30s after the king's car entered (the southern city) Tafileh," the official said of Monday's royal visit.

A U.S. man based in Scotland has unmasked himself as the author of the "Gay Girl in Damascus" blog, sparking fears Monday that his hoax could harm real-life opponents of the Syrian regime's crackdown.

Tom MacMaster, a bearded 40-year-old married Edinburgh University masters student, apologized on Sunday and confessed that he was "Amina Abdallah Arraf", supposedly a Syrian lesbian.

Kuwait's deputy premier, Sheikh Ahmed Fahad al-Sabah, a senior member of the ruling family, has submitted his resignation from the cabinet, a minister said on Monday.

"Sheikh Ahmed has submitted his resignation and the cabinet referred it to the ruler," state minister for cabinet affairs and government spokesman Ali al-Rashed told reporters.

Israeli police arrested four Israeli settlers in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar on Monday, accusing them of "attacks on public order," a police spokeswoman said.

Among those detained was a minor suspected of setting fire to Palestinian property, she said, adding that police had seized various items including computers when they arrested the suspects.