Yoram Cohen, an Arabist with 30 years experience at Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet, has been appointed as its new director, the prime minister's office said.

Cohen, who replaces Yuval Diskin and will assume the position on May 15, was named by Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night.

Bahrain's parliament on Tuesday accepted the resignations of 11 out of 18 Shiite MPs who stepped down in protest at violence against pro-democracy demonstrators, exposing them to prosecution.

The house in a unanimous vote "accepted the resignations of 11 MPs of Al-Wefaq, the largest bloc in the 40-member parliament of the Shiite-majority state, official news agency BNA said.

Israel's Knesset, or parliament, has passed a law which would enable the court system to revoke the citizenship of anyone convicted of spying, treason or helping the enemy during times of war.

The bill, which was passed by 37 to 11 at a late-night session on Monday, was initiated by two Knesset members (MKs) from the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

A Kuwaiti MP Tuesday filed to question Information Minister Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah Al-Sabah in parliament over alleged financial and administrative irregularities and failure to perform his duty.

Independent MP Faisal al-Duwaisan claimed that Sheikh Ahmad, also the oil minister, has failed to take action against senior information ministry officials implicated in administrative and financial wrongdoings.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi called for an end to the "barbaric offensive" against Libya in a letter addressed to international powers meeting in London Tuesday to discuss his nation's future.

In the letter, addressed to the "contact group" of nations meeting to map out a post-Gadhafi future for Libya, the strongman likened the NATO-led air strikes to military campaigns launched by Adolf Hitler during World War II.

Israeli troops on Tuesday arrested around 40 people in a village near Nablus as they continued hunting the killers of an Israeli family, Palestinian sources said.

Troops entered the village of Awarta shortly after midnight and began searching dozens of homes, seizing an unspecified number of computers, security sources and witnesses said.

Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi are behind a wave of disappearances of opposition activists, with several teenagers among those missing, rights group Amnesty International said.

The London-based group listed 30 cases where it said political activists and those suspected of either being rebel fighters or their supporters had gone missing.

Israel warned its citizens from traveling to Iraq due to the increase in threats on the emphasis that visits to Iraq are illegal and a criminal offense, in a statement issued by the prime minister’s office.

“Given the increase in threats, visiting Iraq is very dangerous,” The National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau warned on Monday.

A defiant President Barack Obama Monday told Americans he had stopped a "massacre" in Libya, but bluntly warned that trying to oust Moammar Gadhafi by force could repeat the carnage of Iraq.

"As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action," Obama said, mounting a robust defense of his decision to rain air strikes on Gadhafi's troops in a U.N.-mandated bid to protect civilians.

Ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his family are under house arrest, Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said on its website Monday, denying that the former leader had fled to Saudi Arabia.

"There is no truth to reports that former president Hosni Mubarak has left Egypt for Tabuk in Saudi Arabia," the country's military rulers said in a statement on Facebook.