Thirteen people were killed when gunmen opened fire Friday on two vehicles carrying Shiite Muslims in Pakistan's lawless tribal region in suspected sectarian violence, officials said.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Small protests broke out in Bahrain's capital for a planned "Day of Rage" on Friday despite a ban under martial law imposed last week, but were quickly crushed by security forces fanned out across Manama.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Small protests broke out in Bahrain's capital for a planned "Day of Rage" on Friday despite a ban under martial law imposed last week, but were quickly crushed by security forces fanned out across Manama.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday criticized military intervention by Sunni Arab neighbors in Bahrain, and followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets of Baghdad.

A half-billion-dollar effort to showcase Iraq's holiest Shiite city to the world is coming down to the wire as many contracts remain unsigned and funds are being hastily re-allocated.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Sectarian clashes erupted at a school in Bahrain on Thursday, fueling fears a planned march on the royal court on Friday could inflame the Gulf island where a majority of citizens is Shi'ite but the ruling family is Sunni.

Known across the region for its fine texture, the Najafi abaya is worn by all manner of VIPs from officials to oil-rich sheikhs. But the men who produce the hand-made cloth, inheritors of a generations-old trade, are increasingly going out of business.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Shi'ites held two small protests in the kingdom's oil-producing east on Friday, demanding the release of a cleric and other prisoners, witnesses, human rights activists and Shi'ite sources said.

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric urged the country's politicians Saturday to heed calls for reform after thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to protest against corruption and poor basic services.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A wave of uprisings across the Arab world have inspired Iraqi youth to plug into social media and organize their own "day of rage" on Friday against poor basic services in Iraq.

Radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr returned to the holy city of Najaf from Iran on Wednesday, a source within his office told AFP.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Bahrain's king has offered a national dialogue "with all parties" in an effort to resolve a crisis that has killed four people and wounded hundreds, rocking the island, a key regional ally of the United States.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Bahrain's king has offered a national dialogue "with all parties" in an effort to resolve a crisis that has killed four people and wounded hundreds, rocking the island, a key regional ally of the United States.

DIRAZ, Bahrain (Reuters) - Bahrain's senior Shi'ite cleric said on Friday a police attack on protesters which killed four people was a "massacre" and the government has shut the door to dialogue.

DIRAZ, Bahrain (Reuters) - Bahrain's senior Shi'ite cleric said on Friday a police attack on protesters which killed four people was a "massacre" and the government has shut the door to dialogue.

Fifty inmates at the central prison in the city of Amara in southern Iraq have began a hunger strike, claiming they had made confessions under torture and should be freed, a lawmaker said on Saturday.

Like other Muslims they read the Koran and face Mecca to pray, but the Shiite community in Malaysia is considered a "deviant sect" and faces harassment in this multicultural country.

Iraq is not immune to protests elsewhere in the Arab world because it is a democracy, and its leaders must work to fight corruption and promote social justice, clerics said in Friday sermons.

The US envoy to Baghdad and the senior US commander in Iraq assured skeptical lawmakers Thursday that the US diplomatic mission there will be well protected after US troops withdraw in late 2011.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told US diplomats in 2009 that neighbouring Iran and Syria were providing weapons to insurgent groups within Iraq, a leaked document showed on Thursday.