Israeli officials called on Sunday for relations with Egypt to return to normal despite Friday's attack by a mob on Israel's embassy in Cairo.

"We shall do everything in order that relations between the two countries will return to normal," Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, considered close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told public radio.

The United States is considering a request from Turkey to base Predator drones there to operate against Kurdish separatists based in northern Iraq, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.

Citing unnamed senior U.S. military officials, the newspaper said a decision to deploy the drones could strengthen the U.S.-Turkish diplomatic alliance but draw the United States deeper into the conflict.

Heavily armed police were on alert in and around New York City Friday after U.S. officials warned of a "credible" but unconfirmed bomb threat on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

"There is specific, credible but unconfirmed threat information," the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday, as the White House confirmed President Barack Obama had ordered boosted counterterrorism efforts.

Heavy rain on Thursday swamped areas of the U.S. northeast already sodden from Hurricane Irene, with up to five people killed as flash floods forced over 100,000 to leave their homes.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a flash flood warning for counties in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland and Virginia, as towns became inundated, busy highways closed down and commuter lines backed up.

The Obama administration has explained its effort to block AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile USA by saying it will fight mergers that would reduce competition and hurt consumers.

Yet few think the lawsuit the administration filed Wednesday signals a more aggressive stance toward acquisitions in other industries. Rather, experts say, the administration's challenge of AT&T's purchase comes down to this: Telecom is dominated by just a few big companies. Reducing the number of major players could all but kill competition and drive prices up.

The U.S. State Department on Friday issued a worldwide travel alert ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, calling on Americans living and traveling abroad to remain vigilant.

The department said it had not identified any "specific threats" about possible attacks but that al-Qaida and its affiliates had "demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks" against the U.S. and U.S. interests.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Saturday were to warn Syria they will no longer remain silent on its deadly crackdown on dissent, an Arab diplomat said.

The meeting, being held in the absence of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, was to move first to re-admit Libya in the presence of the rebel government's Prime Minister Mahmud Jibril, who was in Cairo.

Dick Cheney said he urged then-president George Bush in June 2007 to bomb a suspected nuclear reactor site in Syria, the former vice president wrote in his memoirs, the New York Times reported Thursday.

"I again made the case for U.S. military action against the reactor," Cheney wrote about a meeting on the issue according to the newspaper, which received an advance copy of the book.

The EU on Wednesday named Iran's elite al-Quds force, five Syrian generals and the military intelligence network in Damascus on a new list of those sanctioned for their role in repression the U.N. says has killed 2,200 people.

The much-feared wing of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was listed for having provided "technical assistance, equipment and support to the Syrian security services to repress civilian protest movements," the European Union's Official Journal showed.

Hurricane Irene bore down on the Bahamas Wednesday, churning on a track that could see it slam the U.S. mainland as an even stronger storm later in the week.

Irene packed winds of 175 kilometers per hour, making it a category two storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in its 0900 GMT bulletin.