Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed "diabolical" and "treacherous" Arab countries for a protracted surge in nationwide violence in a speech on Sunday, but stopped short of naming individual countries.
The premier said suicide bombers were coming to Iraq from as far afield as Morocco, Libya and Yemen, but did not single out countries he described as "evil" which he said were supporting violent extremists in Iraq.

Libyan recruits are being put through their paces starting this month at a boot camp in Italy as part of an international program to restore stability amid unrest since the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Some of them are former rebels who fought to oust Gadhafi as part of ragtag opposition forces and the training is taking place at an Italian army base in Cassino, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Rome.

Libya's General National Congress declared a state of emergency in the country on Saturday, an official said, after fresh clashes erupted in the south when gunmen group seized a military base.
The GNC, Libya's highest political authority, made the decision during an "extraordinary session" about the situation in the southern town of Sebha, where tribal clashes have been raging for several days, the official said.

Two Italian construction workers have gone missing in eastern Libya, the foreign ministry said on Saturday, amid ongoing instability in the country following the ouster and death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
The two men from the Calabria region in southern Italy were working on a road building project in Derna for the contractor General World and had been in Libya for a few months, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The U.S. government could have prevented deadly attacks on its mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi by fixing "known security shortfalls," a damning Senate report concluded Wednesday.
Four American citizens, including Ambassador Chris Stephens, died in the double attack targeting a U.S. diplomatic facility and the nearby CIA annex on September 11, 2012.

Protesters fired shots at Libya's parliament building in Tripoli Tuesday, hitting it several times and prompting the session to be suspended but causing no casualties, a lawmaker told Agence France Presse.
Demonstrators have attacked or broken into the General National Congress (GNC) building several times in the past, either trying to force the adoption of laws or to air other grievances.

Italy is seriously concerned over unrest in Libya and the government's ability to rein in local militias, Defense Minister Mario Mauro said Monday during a visit to Washington.
"We are deeply worried about the situation in Libya where the government is struggling to establish its authority over the militias that fought against the previous regime," Mauro said at an event at Johns Hopkins University.

Nearly 650 people were wounded during the night by exploding fireworks in the Libyan capital, where Muslims were celebrating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, state media said Monday.
Lana news agency, quoting hospital officials in Tripoli, said more than 640 people were hurt, many of them suffering burns to the hands and eyes. It added that some revelers had fingers amputated.

Libya's deputy industry minister, Hassan al-Droui, was shot dead during a visit to his hometown of Sirte, east of Tripoli, security and hospital sources said Sunday.
The identity of the shooters was not immediately known, but the official's death was the first assassination of a member of the transitional government since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime in October 2011.

Fighting between rival tribes in southern Libya killed 19 people Saturday and wounded another 20, a local official said.
"Violent confrontations broke out between Toubous and Awled Sleiman early this morning," Ayoub al-Zarrouk, chief of the local council in Sebha told Agence France Presse. "So far there are 19 dead and 20 wounded."
