Opponents of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's embattled regime on Sunday dismissed as insufficient an offer to include them in political reform plans and renewed their demand that he step down.

In a landmark concession, Vice President Omar Suleiman agreed to sit down with the groups, which included the banned Muslim Brotherhood, but the talks produced no immediate breakthrough in the two-week-old standoff.

A Kuwaiti youth group called Sunday for a mass rally outside parliament on Tuesday to protest the government's "undemocratic practices" and to press for its ouster.

The group, Fifth Fence, said it is using Twitter to urge people to gather in large numbers for the protest.

Algerian forces have killed a senior Islamic militant linked with two attacks in 2007 in the capital Algiers that left dozens dead, local media reported on Sunday.

Kamel Bourihane, also known as Abou Hafs, was ambushed by the Algerian army on Friday while travelling in a vehicle in the Bouira region, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Algiers, the El-Khabar newspaper reported.

The embattled regime of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak launched landmark talks Sunday with opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and street protesters who seized Cairo's central square.

As global pressure mounted for newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman to negotiate a peaceful transition to more democratic rule, the government took the historic step of meeting with its most long-standing and powerful foes.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged not to seek a third term in an interview with AFP Saturday, and said he would try to pass a constitutional amendment limiting his successors to two terms.

"The constitution does not prevent a third, fourth or fifth term, but I have personally decided not to seek another term after this one," he said.

A failed assassination attempt on Egypt's vice president, Omar Suleiman, in recent days left two of his bodyguards dead, sources told Fox News.

Such an attempt on the life of Suleiman would mark an alarming turn in the uprising against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, who only recently named Suleiman as vice president in an effort to quell the unrest and possibly line up a successor, Fox News said.

Egypt loomed large over talks of the Middle East Quartet in Germany on Saturday, with fears that a change of regime in Cairo could throw into turmoil an already deeply troubled peace process.

"One of our big partners did not want the Quartet to meet at this stage, saying maybe it's not the moment to be discussing the peace process when the whole region is undergoing dramatic changes," a European diplomat said.

Egyptian authorities have arrested al-Jazeera's bureau chief and one of its journalists in Cairo, the Doha-based television channel said on Saturday, amid anti-government protests in the capital.

"Egypt's security services have arrested al-Jazeera bureau chief in Cairo Abdel Fattah Fayed and the journalist Ahmed Yousef," the pan-Arab channel, banned since last Sunday from operating in Egypt, reported on its website.

Unknown attackers blew up an Egyptian terminal supplying gas to Israel near the Gaza Strip on Saturday, an official said, amid raging protests against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.

The attackers blew up the terminal and the pipeline in the town of Lihfen in the Sheikh Zuwayed area of Sinai, 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Gaza Strip, the official said.

Leading Egyptian opposition figure Mohammed ElBaradei has announced that he would not run for president in the upcoming elections.

"No, I will not join in. The best I can do is act as an agent for change," he told Austrian newspaper Der Standard, when asked whether he would compete in presidential elections.