Amman- Arab stocks plunged across the board this week amid sell-offs particularly by foreign funds that reflected receding investors' confidence and concerns resulting from falling oil prices, financial analysts said Friday.

"I believe dumping of stocks by foreign funds has created a negative sentiment at regional markets that prompted panic sell- offs," Wajdi Makhamreh, Chief Operating Officer at the Amman-based Sanabel International Holding, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Amman - Leading Arab stock exchanges declined this week because of what financial analysts on Friday attributed to the advent of the fasting month of Ramadan and a shrinking volume of liquidity.

"We believe investors' decisions have been affected by the start of Ramadan when business retreats to a low ebb," an Amman-based portfolio manager told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"However, we also believe the low prices of stocks will trigger a wave of buying in the coming two weeks that will reverse the downward trend," he said.

Tel Aviv - An Israeli Arab was indicted Friday on suspicion of conspiring with an al-Qaeda agent to carry out attacks in Israel, security officials announced.

Khaled Abu Rakayek, 23, of the Bedouin village of Tel Sheva, in southern Israel, was arrested on July 29.

He is accused of trying to set up a cell which would carry out suicide bombings in Israel.

According to the indictment, he also contacted an al-Qaeda operative in the Gaza Strip to discuss possible attacks and had downloaded onto his computer videos documenting terror attacks committed by the global Jihad organization.

He also downloaded material documenting how to prepare explosive belts.

Amman - Arab stock markets lost further ground this week as the continuation of the dispute over the Iranian nuclear file and the lack of factors moving the markets negatively influenced decisions of investors, financial analysts said Friday.

However, the drastic decline in stock prices over the past few weeks prompted a buying wave in the Kuwaiti and United Arab Emirates stock exchanges that gave the impression stock prices could be bottoming out, they added.

Amman - Arab stock markets fell this week despite positive results for the first six months of the year, as investors appeared hesitant due to political developments and retreating oil prices, financial experts said Friday.

"We believe that markets have been affected before anything else by geopolitics and receding oil prices," Wajdi Makhamreh, Chief Operating Officer of the Amman-based Sanabel International Holding, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"However, we believe that regional markets will benefit in the long term from lower oil prices because they give boost to the world economy, particularly in the United States," he said.