Egypt on Sunday named its former ambassador to the United Nations, Nabil al-Arabi, as foreign minister in the latest move to purge the cabinet of members of toppled president Hosni Mubarak's regime.

"Nabil al-Arabi said he has accepted the foreign ministry portfolio during this critical time in the history of Egypt," the state-run MENA news agency reported.

France hailed Sunday the creation of a Libyan "National Council" by the leaders of the armed revolt against Moammer Gadhafi, and said it supported its objectives.

The council met on Saturday in the rebel-held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya, declaring itself the sole representative body for all of Libya, despite Gadhafi's continued control of the capital and much of the West.

Libyan rebels had refused to talk to a British delegation who entered the country without prior arrangement and who were being sent back to London, the rebels' national council said on Sunday.

"We do not know the nature of their mission. We refused to discuss anything with them due to the way they entered the country," spokesman Abdul Hafiz Ghoqa told reporters in the rebel stronghold Benghazi.

Libyan rebels had refused to talk to a British delegation who entered the country without prior arrangement and who were being sent back to London, the rebels' national council said on Sunday.

"We do not know the nature of their mission. We refused to discuss anything with them due to the way they entered the country," spokesman Abdul Hafiz Ghoqa told reporters in the rebel stronghold Benghazi.

Thousands of demonstrators massed Sunday at Manama's Al-Qudaibiya Palace, where Bahrain's cabinet meets, chanting slogans against the tiny but strategic Gulf state's government.

White-helmeted police with riot shields stood behind one gate, looking on as the flag-waving demonstrators chanted "Down Hamad! Down Hamad!", in reference to Bahrain's King Hamad.

Any international military intervention in Libya would have "absolutely negative" effects, France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Sunday during a visit to neighbor Egypt.

"France, as well as many of its partners, is not in favor of any Western military intervention in Libya, which would have absolutely negative effects," Juppe told a news conference in Cairo.

Libyan helicopter gunships fired on a rebel force advancing west toward the capital along the Mediterranean coastline Sunday and forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi fought intense ground battles with the rival fighters.

The opposition force pushed out of the rebel-held eastern half of Libya late last week for the first time and has been cutting a path west toward Tripoli.

A roadside bomb killed six people and wounded 12 aboard a bus in Iraq's southern port city of Basra on Sunday, a provincial official said.

The blast targeted a passing U.S. military convoy but instead struck the bus and wrecked it, the head of Basra provincial council's security committee, Ali al-Ghanimi, said.

The Yemeni opposition has called for an escalation in anti-regime demonstrations to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave after the embattled leader refused to quit, a spokesman said on Sunday.

"We have called upon the people to widen demonstrations, and escalate the peaceful struggle in all regions until he (Saleh) is left with one option, that is to leave," said Mohammed Sabri, a leading member of the Common Forum opposition alliance.

Thousands of Libyans celebrated victories over rebel forces claimed by Moammar Gadhafi's regime Sunday in the center of Tripoli with gunfire lasting for hours and hooting of horns.

"We are shooting to celebrate because we are beating al-Qaida. We have won, al-Qaida is gone," one soldier told an AFP correspondent, apparently unaware of rebel denials that key towns had been seized.