The United Arab Emirates on Sunday called for political action to stop what it called "the repressive machine" in Damascus, ahead of an international conference aimed at resolving the Syrian conflict.

"We call on all concerned parties to take decisive political action to stop the repressive machine in Damascus," UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan said at a news conference with his Australian counterpart Bob Carr.

Clashes broke out between radical Islamists and police on Sunday after Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia told its followers to gather "in large numbers" near Tunis for its annual congress, defying a government ban.

Hundreds of Salafists erected barricades in the streets of Ettadhamen, a poor neighborhood 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Tunis, and hurled rocks at police who responded with tear gas, Agence France Presse reported.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on Sunday for joint Sunni-Shiite prayers after a spate of attacks on places of worship, saying the attackers wanted to ignite sectarian strife in Iraq.

"I call for holding joint prayers... in one of the large Baghdad mosques" each Friday, Maliki said in a statement.

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 U.S.-Russian push for a conference aimed at finding a political solution to the Syria conflict, Ahmed Ben-Hilli told reporters.

Iran is tightening control of the Internet ahead of next month's presidential election, mindful of violent street protests that social networkers inspired last time around over claims of fraud, users and experts say.

The authorities deny such claims, but have not explained exactly why service has become slower.

A 5.5-magnitude earthquake on Sunday struck Algeria's Bejaia region, 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Algiers, injuring five people and damaging some houses, the APS news agency said, citing medics.

"There are no serious cases -- the victims are mainly suffering from trauma," a medic said.

A Saudi man escaped a sentence of paralysis for stabbing and paralyzing another man by offering him compensation, media reported on Sunday, although the authorities have denied issuing the punishment.

The sentence was dropped after the family of Mohammed al-Hazim, 26, accepted one million riyals ($270,000) in compensation from the family of convicted Ali Khawahir, 24, al-Watan daily reported.

Algeria censored two dailies over reports that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, hospitalized in Paris since April 27, will return home in a coma after his health took a turn for the worse, their chief said on Sunday.

The reports in the two newspapers referred to a "deterioration" in Bouteflika's health, said managing editor Hichem Aboud, citing French medical sources and relatives of the Algerian president.

A Jordanian military tribunal acquitted five university students of incitement charges on Sunday leveled over accusations they had engaged in "devil worship" and desecrated the Koran, a court official said.

"The court declared the students innocent and ordered them freed for lack of evidence," the official told Agence France Presse, without elaborating.

President Bashar Assad of Syria has insisted he has no information on James Foley and Domenico Quirico, two journalists missing inside the war-torn country.

"At present we have no information about the two journalists you mentioned," Assad said in an interview with Argentinian news agency Telam and daily Clarin.