Egypt's judiciary has ordered the arrest of members of the "Black Bloc", a shadowy group of militants who have appeared among protesters during the latest clashes with police, a judicial source said Tuesday.

Prosecutor General Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah has authorized the arrest "of all people suspected of belonging to the group and ordered that they be brought before the courts," the source said.

Iraq's top energy official repeated claims on Tuesday that the country's autonomous Kurdish region was "illegally" exporting oil, the latest in a long-running dispute between the two sides.

The remarks from Hussein al-Shahristani, the deputy prime minister responsible for energy affairs, come as the central government in Baghdad and Kurdish authorities in Arbil tussle over a disputed oil exploration deal with ExxonMobil and a row over energy contracts.

Two Tunisian security agents were wounded in a gunfight with suspected hardline Islamists during a night time operation in the western town of Kasserine, police said on Tuesday.

"The special operation targeted three people suspected of belonging to a Salafist group," said a senior police official in Kasserine.

A military tribunal on Tuesday handed two police officers jail terms of 10 and 20 years respectively for the "voluntary and involuntary homicide" of five Tunisians killed during the 2010-2011 uprising.

The tribunal in the central city of Sfax sentenced Commander Mourad Jouini to 10 years in prison and Lieutenant Bassam Akremi, in absentia, to 20 years, a court official told Agence France Presse.

Saudi Arabia has set new limitations on the powers of its notorious religious police, charged with ensuring compliance with Islamic morality but often accused of abuses, its chief said on Tuesday.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice "once had much expanded powers, but with the new system... some of these powers, such as interrogating suspects and pressing charges," will be restricted to the police and public prosecution, Sheikh Abdullatif Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh told Agence France Presse.

Two soldiers and 16 al-Qaida militants were killed on Tuesday in a Yemeni military offensive against the jihadists who are suspected of holding Western hostages, sources said.

"Sixteen al-Qaida fighters were killed in four raids when the Yemeni aviation targeted positions near Manaseh," a stronghold of the terror network in the province of Bayda, a tribal source said on condition of anonymity.

A Cairo tribunal on Tuesday upheld death sentences passed on seven Egyptian Coptic Christians in absentia for their involvement in a movie that ridiculed the Prophet Mohammed, a judicial source said.

The accused, including the director of the movie that triggered outrage across the Muslim world when it surfaced last September, are currently living in the United States.

Non-governmental charity organizations, meeting Tuesday in Kuwait ahead of a major donors conference, pledged $182 million for Syrian civilians affected by the deadly conflict.

The announcement was made during the meeting hosted by the International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO) of Kuwait, the official KUNA news agency reported.

Syrian rebels captured early Tuesday a vital bridge across the Euphrates river in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor that could cut off regime supplies to the adjoining province of Hasakeh, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the seizing of the Siyasiyeh bridge and another smaller bridge in Deir Ezzor triggered retaliatory air strikes from the regime forces targeting the two crossings.

The bodies of 78 young men, all executed with a single gunshot, were found Tuesday in a river in Aleppo city, adding to the grim list of massacres committed during Syria's 22-month conflict.

The gruesome discovery came ahead of a briefing by peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to the U.N. Security Council on the uprising, which the United Nations says has left more than 60,000 people dead.