Pakistan's incoming prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday threw his support behind peace talks with the country's Taliban insurgents, saying it would be a top priority for his new government. "If Taliban have offered us an option to have dialogue then we should take it seriously," Sharif said while addressing his party's newly elected parliamentarians in the eastern city of Lahore. "Terrorism is one of the main problems (facing) Pakistan. Establishment of peace in Pakistan is one of our top (priorities) and we are discussing ways and means to establish peace," he said.

Tunisian Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia called on its supporters to gather in a Tunis suburb on Sunday, after the government banned it from holding its annual congress in the central city of Kairouan. "We call on our brothers to gather in large numbers in the Ettadhamen district of the capital," the hardline Islamist group said on its official Facebook page. Ansar al-Sharia official, Sami Essid, confirmed that the movement's congress would now be held in the Tunis suburb. "Our congress is being held in Ettadhamen," he told AFP.

Tunisian security forces deployed in strength on Saturday after Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia called on its hardline Islamist supporters to defy a government ban on its annual congress. There was a heavy police presence at tollbooths along the main highway from the capital to the central city of Kairouan where the Salafists have vowed to hold Sunday's gathering, AFP correspondents reported. Police were singling out for checks the private minibuses that ply between Tunisian towns, with special attention paid to men with beards, as sported by Salafists.

Tunisia's hardline Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia vowed on Thursday to go ahead with its annual congress at the weekend in defiance of a government ban on the controversial gathering. "We are not asking permission from the government to preach the word of God and we warn against any police intervention to prevent the congress from taking place," the group's spokesman Seifeddine Rais told a news conference in Tunis.