Egypt's top cleric told visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday not to interfere in the affairs of Bahrain or other Gulf states, and to uphold the rights of his country's Sunni minority.

Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the grand imam of Cairo's al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, also denounced what he described as the "spread of Shiism in Sunni lands".

Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Tuesday that the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran was growing under the "terrifying dictatorship" ruling the Islamic republic.

"The Iranian danger has grown," Peres said at the opening of the newly-elected Israeli parliament. "It threatens our existence, the independence of the Arab states, the peace of the whole world."

Saudi Arabia beheaded on Tuesday a man who had been on death row for three decades for beating to death a fellow Saudi, after the victim's family denied him clemency, the official SPA news agency said.

Abdullah bin Fandi al-Shammari was executed in the northern town of Hael, the agency said.

Suspected Jewish extremists have torched a vehicle in a West Bank village and scrawled Hebrew graffiti on a nearby wall, Palestinians and Israelis said on Tuesday.

Another car was lightly damaged, according to the army, in the incident at Deir Jarir village, north-east of the city of Ramallah.

A Tunisian Salafist leader wanted for deadly violence said the government is in thrall to Western powers, according to an interview banned by the authorities but posted Tuesday on the Internet.

Abu Iyadh, who heads the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, also said however he was ready for dialogue with the country's ruling Islamist party Ennahda.

A French reporter held for two weeks for taking unauthorized photos in Baghdad appeared before an Iraqi judge for the first time Tuesday, looking disheveled but in good health, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Nadir Dendoune, who also holds Australian and Algerian nationality, was arrested last month in the south of the capital for allegedly taking photos of security installations without a permit, and a judge is set to decide soon whether he should be released or charged with an offense.

The U.N. food agency said Tuesday it will dramatically expand its aid operation in Syria to reach one million more people amid growing alarm over the humanitarian situation in the war-torn country.

"In February, we hope to scale up our operations and reach 1.75 million, then two million in March, and 2.5 million vulnerable Syrians in April," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program.

U.N. human rights experts on Tuesday urged Iran to stop arresting journalists after a wave of detentions that it said was a "flagrant" violation of international law.

"The recent wave of arrests of journalists solely for carrying out their professional activities is a flagrant violation of Iran's obligations under international human rights law," four U.N. experts said in a joint press release.

Thousands of Kuwaitis demonstrated Tuesday after a court sentenced three former MPs to three years in jail for insulting the emir, in a ruling the opposition described as "political".

Falah al-Sawwagh, Khaled al-Tahus and Bader al-Dahum were convicted of undermining the status of Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah at a public rally on October 10, their lawyer Mohammad al-Jumia said.

Attacks north of Baghdad, including a third suicide blast in as many days, killed at least eight people Tuesday, officials said, amid a spike in violence that has left almost 70 people dead in all.

The latest bloodshed, in which over 150 people have been wounded, has raised tensions as Iraq grapples with a political crisis and demonstrators in mostly Sunni areas of the country call for the resignation of the Shiite premier.