Saudi Arabia has allowed the three widows and children of slain Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden entrance into the kingdom on humanitarian grounds, a Saudi-owned daily reported on Saturday.

Citing a senior Saudi official, the London-based Asharq al-Awsat said the kingdom "dealt with bin Laden's wives on humanitarian grounds," adding that authorities were confident that they and the children "were not involved in" the operations of the extremist group.

The three widows of slain al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and other family members arrived in Saudi Arabia on Friday after being expelled from Pakistan, a Yemeni non-government group head told Agence France Presse.

"The Yemeni woman has arrived in Saudi Arabia along with other members of the Bin Laden family, his children and her brother who was looking after her case in Pakistan," Mohammed Naji Allaw of the NGO Hood said.

Osama bin Laden's family was deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia Friday, officials said, nearly a year after the al-Qaida leader was killed in a U.S. raid.

The 9/11 mastermind's three widows and their children were detained by Pakistan after the Saudi was killed on May 2 last year in a secret U.S. Navy SEAL operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, north of Islamabad.

Saudi ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri hailed efforts exerted by Lebanese officials to detain two members of an “Arab gang” that abducted two Saudi nationals on the outskirts of Beirut, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported.

Asiri confirmed that the two Saudi nationals Tawfiq and Abdullah al-Shaqaqeen were kidnapped and tortured for eight days and are currently receiving medical treatment at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

Lebanese security forces have freed two Saudi nationals kidnapped and tortured for eight days in an apartment on the outskirts of Beirut, the kingdom's official SPA news agency reported Wednesday.

Citing Saudi's ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Awadh Asiri, the report said Tawfiq and Abdullah al-Shaqaqeen, were "lured and tricked by a gang loyal to an Arab state," which "held and tortured them for eight days," adding that the kidnappers demanded a "large ransom" in exchange for their release.

Hundreds of Egyptians protested outside the Saudi embassy in Cairo on Tuesday demanding the release of an Egyptian human rights activist held by Saudi authorities who claim he possessed banned drugs.

The protesters chanted slogans against the Saudi regime as they called for the "immediate" release of Ahmed Mohammed al-Gizawi, arrested on arrival at Jeddah airport last week.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat will remain in the cabinet and is committed to his alliance with Hizbullah, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Tuesday.

“Although they have different stances regarding the Syrian revolution, Jumblat is committed to his alliance with Hizbullah,” sources close to the PSP leader told the daily.

Egypt said on Monday it formally requested that Israel look into a statement attributed to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in which he described Egypt as more "worrying" than Israel's arch-nemesis Iran.

A foreign ministry statement said Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr asked Cairo's ambassador in Tel Aviv to request "clarifications on the accuracy of the statement attributed to the Israeli foreign minister."

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat travelled to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, his first to the kingdom since the formation of the government and his joining of the new majority in Lebanon, reported al-Akhbar newspaper on Monday.

March 8 sources did not hide their concern with the visit “given the impact it may have on the political balance in Lebanon since the toppling of former Premier Saad Hariri’s government” in early 2011, reported al-Liwaa newspaper on Monday.

Saudi Arabia beheaded and crucified a Sudanese man in Riyadh on Friday after he was convicted of raping, robbing and killing a woman, the interior ministry announced.

Abdulrahman Zine Elabidine "broke into a house strangling its owner to death while she was asleep."