Four Palestinian men were detained on Sunday after Israeli troops at a West Bank checkpoint discovered 12 pipe bombs, a knife and a gun in their possession, an Israeli police spokesman said.

"Four Palestinians were arrested at the Salem checkpoint. They had a commando knife, a pistol and 12 explosives. They were arrested and taken for questioning and the investigation is continuing," spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

Israel on Sunday charged five alleged Jewish extremists over a December raid on an army base, accusing them of gathering intelligence on the Israeli military and planning a riot, local media said.

The Jerusalem Post said that the accused, from Jerusalem and two West Bank settlements, were charged with "gathering important military intelligence, conspiracy to riot and entering a closed military zone."

Yemeni troops clashed with al-Qaida linked militants in a new attempt to regain control of Abyan province that left seven people dead, a military official said on Sunday.

A soldier and six militants were killed in the fighting, which erupted late on Saturday north of the southern province's capital Zinjibar, the official told Agence France Presse.

A large Russian naval flotilla led by an aircraft carrier has docked in the Syrian port of Tartus in what Damascus state media hailed on Sunday as a show of solidarity by close ally Moscow.

The six-day port call by the carrier group in the Mediterranean port where Russia has a recently expanded naval base is intended to boost ties at a time when President Bashar Assad's government is under mounting Western and Arab pressure over its bloody crackdown on dissent, the Syrian press said.

Kuwait will start granting citizenship to some stateless people by early February, the interior minister said in remarks published on Sunday.

"The first batch of citizenships (to stateless) will be announced by the end of January or the beginning of February at the latest," Sheikh Ahmad al-Humud al-Sabah told al-Rai newspaper, without giving further details.

The U.N. Security Council this week returns to the battle over Syria's deadly crackdown on protests -- but opponents of U.N. action, led by Russia, keep trying to switch the debate to Libya.

Western nations have been infuriated and frustrated by demands by Russia and others for an inquiry into the NATO airstrikes in Libya which they use as a reason to oppose U.N. action in Syria. US ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, calls it a "bogus" move, hiding other motives.

The United States on Saturday expressed concern over fresh violence in Bahrain between police and demonstrators, and urged a probe into the most recent clashes.

U.S. embassy officials in Manama meanwhile met human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, a Shiite, who was injured during a demonstration on Friday, the State Department said.

A "revolutionary front" of Sudanese rebels seeking to overthrow President Omar al-Bashir asked Libya to arrest the accused war criminal during his visit to Tripoli that began on Saturday.

Bashir arrived in the Libyan capital for his first visit since the country's long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed last year.

Hundreds of Bahrainis gathered on Saturday for a demonstration called by the Shiite-led opposition defying a ban by police.

Cleric Sheikh Ali Salman, who heads the main Shiite opposition formation al-Wefaq, appeared along with leading opposition figures among the protesters, according to rights activist Yousif al-Mahafda and footage posted on social networks.

23 Syrian civilians were shot dead on Saturday as the regime held funerals on Saturday for 26 people killed in a Damascus suicide bombing that it called a "terrorist attack," promising an "iron fist" response to the second such incident in two weeks.

Local Coordination Committees announced that Syrian security forces shot dead 23 civilians including a child.