A Libyan diplomat in Bulgaria has been declared "persona non grata" and will have to leave the country within 24 hours, the foreign ministry announced Monday.

It did not say however why the consular adviser, Ibrahim al-Furis, was being asked to leave.

Fighting between Iranian military forces and Kurdish separatists has displaced hundreds of villagers in the border regions of northern Iraq, the Red Cross said on Monday.

Iran launched a major offensive Saturday against rebel Kurdish bases in Iraq in which eight of its own elite Revolutionary Guards were killed. The separatist Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PJAK, said it had lost two fighters.

The Israeli military and police on Monday captured a boat on the Dead Sea which was trying to smuggle weapons from Jordan, and detained two Palestinians on board, officials said.

The boat was carrying a number of Kalashnikov assault rifles, magazines and other weapons, a statement from the army said, adding that two men, both Palestinians, were being questioned by Israeli police.

Syria's government has adopted a draft law authorizing multipartism in a move that could allow for a change in power in the Arab country ruled for decades by the Baath party, a report said Monday.

The law was adopted by the government during the night, the official SANA news agency reported.

NATO warplanes blitzed a string of military targets in Tripoli on Sunday, an official said, as embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi blamed a "colonial plot" for the conflict engulfing his country.

"In Tripoli there were two command and control nodes, two surface-to-air missile launchers and one anti-aircraft gun (hit)," a NATO official said from the mission's headquarters in Naples, Italy.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has replaced the governor of Deir Ezzor, the state news agency SANA reported on Sunday two days after massive anti-regime protests in the eastern oil hub.

Assad issued a decree appointing Samir Othman al-Sheikh to replace Hussein Arnoos as governor, the agency said.

Hundreds of protesters were still camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square Sunday following a night of bloody clashes with rival demonstrators loyal to the ruling military council.

Fierce battles erupted in the Abassaya neighborhood after anti-regime protesters were blocked from reaching the headquarters of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

Iran on Sunday accused arch-foes the United States and Israel of masterminding the assassination of a scientist in Tehran, Dariush Rezaei-Nejad, who was reportedly associated with the defense ministry.

"The American-Zionist terrorist act yesterday against one of the country's scientists is yet another sign of the Americans' degree of animosity," speaker Ali Larijani told parliament on Sunday.

A suicide bomber driving a pickup truck killed seven people and wounded 18 others on Sunday when his payload detonated at a military camp in Yemen's main southern city of Aden, officials said.

Medics gave the toll, while soldiers told AFP the blast went off as troops prepared to leave the facility for Abyan province, where security forces are engaged in fierce fighting with militants suspected of ties to Al-Qaida.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi heaped praise on toppled Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, describing him as "poor and modest" and saying he deserved honor rather than humiliation.

"I know Hosni Mubarak, a poor and modest man" who loves his people, Gadhafi said in an audio message broadcast on state television late Saturday to mark the anniversary of the 1952 coup in Egypt led by Gamal Abdel Nasser against the monarchy.