Islamist militants have offered to free a British-South African hostage if London allows radical cleric Abu Qatada to choose a country for his extradition, U.S. monitoring service SITE said.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) also threatened that Britain would "open the door of evil" unto its country and people should it send the imam back to his native Jordan where he faces jail, the report said.

The Syrian Central Bank came under rocket propelled grenade attack overnight, state television reported on Monday, blaming an "armed terrorist group."

"An armed terrorist group staged an RPG attack on the Central Bank of Syria on Sabaa Bahrat Square in Damascus," the television reported. "Only material damage was caused."

The body of Libya's former oil minister Shukri Ghanem, who had defected from Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, was found Sunday in the Danube, Austrian police said in a statement.

No trace of violence was found on the body, police spokesman Roman Hahslinger said, adding that "it is possible that he felt unwell and fell into the water."

Algerian youths working on fixed-term contracts for the government took to the streets Sunday threatening to boycott the May 10 legislative polls if they were not awarded permanent jobs.

Some 200 protesters claiming to represent 600,000 youths on pre-employment civil service contracts nationwide staged a demonstration in Algiers waving banners and placards.

An Islamist group calling itself Al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility on the Internet for a deadly suicide bombing in Damascus this week, the SITE Monitoring Service said on Sunday.

Al-Nusra Front named the bomber as Abu Omar al-Shami, and said he detonated his payload when members of the Syrian security forces who had assembled for Friday prayers in the Midan neighborhood had peaked to 150.

The head of Egypt's ruling military has told parliament speaker Saad al-Katatni he will reshuffle the government on Sunday ahead of next month's presidential election, the Muslim Brotherhood website said.

"Field Marshal (Hussein) Tantawi tells Katatni he will reshuffle the government in the coming hours," the site said.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said on Sunday that the case of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is to be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.

Meshaal told journalists in Cairo that he had agreed on the course of action in talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.

The head of Libya's National Transitional Council said on Sunday that the interim government would stay in place, notably to ensure the success of June elections for a constituent assembly.

"Because of concerns about stability and building the state during this delicate stage... and to guarantee the success of the election... the council has decided to keep on the interim government," NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil told reporters.

A Saudi Arabian F-15 warplane has crashed during a training mission in the northwest of the kingdom, but its pilot was able to eject and was safe, the official SPA news agency reported on Sunday.

The aircraft went down on Saturday in the Tabuk region, the agency said, adding that an investigation had begun to determine the cause of the crash.

Major General Robert Mood, head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria, called on all sides to "stop the violence" upon his arrival in Damascus on Sunday.

"To achieve the success of the Kofi Annan plan, I call on all sides to stop violence and help us continue the cessation of armed violence," Mood told reporters.