Nairobi/Khartoum - Sudan's highest religious authority the Committee of Islamic Scholars has warned President Omar al-Bashir against travelling to an annual Arab summit in Qatar later this month.

Al-Bashir faces a risk of detention if he leaves Sudan after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him for war crimes in Sudan's Darfur province.

The clerics issued a non-binding fatwa, or religious ruling, saying that al-Bashir should stay at home due to a threat from "enemies of the nation."

Washington  - The United States will hold Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir responsible for any deaths that occur in Darfur because of his decision to expel foreign aid groups, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.

"This a horrendous situation that is going to cause untold misery and suffering for the people of Darfur, particularly those in the refugee camps," Clinton said.

New York  - An ambush in Sudan's Darfur that led to the death of one peacekeeper was condemned Tuesday by the United Nations- African Union mission in the strife-torn western Sudanese region.

"The UN-AU mission in Darfur strongly condemns these cowardly acts of violence against its peacekeepers and calls on all parties including the government of Sudan to ensure the safety of UN personnel in the region," United Nations spokeswoman Marie Okabe said from UN headquarters in New York.

New York  - UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann launched yet another campaign on Tuesday against Western governments, urging them to stop demonizing Iran and its leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for wiping Israel off the map.

Miguel d'Escoto, a former Sandinista foreign minister of Nicaragua in the 1980s and a Roman Catholic Maryknoll priest, has advocated reform and "democratization" of the United Nations since he assumed leadership of the 192-nation assembly last September.

Nairobi/Khartoum - Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Monday said that he wanted all international aid organizations to cease operations in Sudan within a year as the fall-out from his indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) continued.

Sudan earlier this month expelled 13 organizations, including Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, after the ICC issued an arrest warrant on al-Bashir for alleged war crimes.

Most of the agencies were banished from the conflict-hit Darfur province.

Nairobi/Khartoum - Three western hostages who work for international aid organization Doctors Without Borders are free after being kidnapped earlier this week in western Sudan, according to government and organization sources.

Quoting a government official, the Sudan Tribune reported the release Saturday without citing any further details. The news was confirmed by the Italian foreign ministry and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), as Doctors Without Borders is formally known.