Monitors quit amid West Bank riot

Crowds outnumbered Palestinian police at the scene

International monitors in Hebron, in the West Bank, are leaving after their office was attacked by Palestinians protesting over the Muhammad cartoons.

A spokeswoman for the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (Tiph) said the withdrawal would be temporary.

Hundreds of protesters hurled stones and bottles and smashed windows at the building housing the mission.

Eleven Danish personnel left after the row erupted last week. The cartoons were first published in Denmark.

Yemen action

In Wednesday's attack, rioters forced open a door of the building and reports say the unarmed observers had to wave clubs in order to drive them away.

Palestinian police were outnumbered by protesters but eventually pushed the crowd back and allowed the 60-strong European team to leave the city.

The international presence was established in 1994, intended to be a buffer following the killing of 29 Palestinians by a Jewish settler.

Elsewhere amid continuing unrest over the publication of cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad, authorities in Yemen closed a second newspaper for reprinting the images.

The closure of the English-language weekly Yemen Observer follows similar action against the Arabic-language al-Hourriya, whose publisher-editor now faces arrest.