An Arab League committee on Syria will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday ahead of an international peace conference on ending the country's civil war, the bloc's deputy leader said on Sunday. The foreign ministers of Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Oman, Qatar and Sudan would discuss a US-Russian push for a conference aimed at finding a political solution to the Syria conflict, Ahmed Ben-Hilli told reporters. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would also join the meeting "to follow up on developments in Syria in light of the US-Russian understanding," he said.

The jihadist groups being pursued by the army on Tunisia's border with Algeria are veterans from the Islamist rebellion in northern Mali, Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou told parliament on Wednesday. "They came from Mali," the minister said, during an open session in the national assembly, referring to the militants that the army has been hunting since last week. alf/bsh/sma/al

Tunisian security forces were Thursday hunting two armed jihadist groups near the Algerian border, one in the Mount Chaambi region and the other in Kef further north, the interior ministry said. "There are two groups, one of about 15 to 20 people in Mount Chaambi... Another group is in the Kef region near the Algerian border," ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told AFP. kl-alf/sma/hc

Senior Egyptian officials visited Iran on Saturday to further a proposal by Cairo for an Islamic quartet that would help to resolve the Syrian conflict, the presidency said. President Mohamed Morsi's foreign relations adviser Essam El Haddad led the delegation which included the president's chief of staff Refaa al-Tahtawi, the presidency said in a statement. Egypt had proposed that Turkey, Egypt and bitter regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran form the quartet.