By Paul Ingram

PHOENIX (Reuters) - More than 200 protesters, some armed, berated Islam and its Prophet Mohammed outside an Arizona mosque on Friday in a provocative protest that was denounced by counterprotesters shouting "Go home, Nazis," weeks after an anti-Muslim event in Texas came under attack by two gunmen.

The anti-Muslim event outside the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix was organized by an Iraq war veteran who posted photos of himself online wearing a T-shirt with a crude slogan denigrating Islam and waving the U.S. flag.

As the event got under way, demonstrators on both sides screamed obscenities at each other as police in riot gear swiftly separated the two groups, each with about 250 people, using police tape and barricades.

"This is in response to the recent attack in Texas," organizer Jon Ritzheimer wrote on his Facebook page announcing the event at a mosque targeted in part because the two Texas gunmen had worshipped there.

More than 900 people responded on the event's Facebook page that they would attend, and police expanded their presence in the evening in anticipation of growing crowds. Officers with riot helmets and gas masks formed a cordon for several blocks.

Among the anti-Islam protesters, some of whom called Islam a "religion of murderers," more than a dozen men in military clothing carried semi-automatic weapons. Others waved copies of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad drawn at the Texas event.

By late Friday night, virtually all the protesters and police had left the area with no reports of violent flare-ups or arrests.

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A demonstrator holds a sign at a "Freedom of Speech Rally Round II" across the street from …

Depictions of Mohammad, which many Muslims view as blasphemous, have been a flashpoint for violence in Europe and the United States in recent months where those displaying or creating such images have been targeted by militants.

Anti-Muslim groups have been active in the United States, buying ads and staging demonstrations characterizing Islam as violent, often citing the murderous brutality of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

'LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR'

The Phoenix mosque targeted on Friday has condemned such violence and held a series of sermons at Friday prayers last year by an imam who criticized militant Islamist groups such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and Nigeria's Boko Haram.

The president of the center had urged worshippers not to engage with the demonstrators.

"We should remind ourselves that we do not match wrongness with wrongness, but with grace and mercy and goodness," Usama Shami told worshippers during Friday prayers.

While some counter-protesters outside the mosque responded to the anti-Islam protest with obscenities, others followed his advice and chanted "Love your neighbor."

New Muhammad cartoon contest rekindles free speech …Play video

Todd Green, a religion professor at Luther College in Iowa who studies Islamophobia, said that the brutal acts committed by Islamic State and other militant groups have colored many Americans' impressions of Muslims.

"Almost two-thirds of Americans don't know a Muslim," Green said. "What they know is ISIS, al Qaeda, and Charlie Hebdo," referencing the January attack on the Paris office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead over anger at the magazine's cartoons featuring the Prophet.

In a similar incident, a pair of gunmen on May 3 opened fire near Dallas outside an exhibit of cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammad and were shot dead by police.

Leaders of the Phoenix Muslim community confirmed both gunmen had attended the mosque targeted in Friday's demonstration.

U.S. officials are investigating claims that the Texas gunmen had ties to the Islamic State, but said they had not established a firm connection.

'EPIDEMIC OF ANTI-ISLAMIC SENTIMENT'

The Department of Homeland Security spoke with state and local law enforcement and monitored the situation in Phoenix, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Ritzheimer, the main organizer of the demonstration, said the point was "to expose the true colors of Islam."

"True Islam is terrorism. Yes, the ones that are out committing these atrocities and stuff, they are following the book as it's written," Ritzheimer told CNN.

Ritzheimer was a staff sergeant in the Marine Reserve and was deployed to Iraq twice, in 2005 and 2008, the Marine Corps said.

Anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, who organized the Texas event, said she was not involved in the Phoenix demonstration.

The mosque is a former church near the city's international airport that can hold some 600 worshippers. The Phoenix area is home to tens of thousands of Muslims.

Friday's event is part of "an epidemic of anti-Islamic sentiment" that goes beyond protesting against extremism, said Imraan Siddiqi of the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"Don't mistake that, they're not saying they want to rid America of radical Islam, they are saying they want to rid America of Islam," Siddiqi said.

(Writing and additional reporting by Alistair Bell, Sharon Bernstein and Curtis Skinner; Additional reporting by Scott Malone in Boston, and Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Lisa Shumaker and Nick Macfie)

According to the report, former President Bill Clinton turned down repeated offers to speak at Czech model Petra Nemcova's annual charity event until she directly offered the Clinton family's foundation $500,000 of the proceeds for appearing.

When she did, Clinton attended Nemcova's 2014 gala in Manhattan.

Doug White, director of Columbia University's fundraising management program, told The Times that the arrangement was strange because Clinton's foundation is so much bigger. The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has reportedly raised $2 billion.

"This is primarily a small but telling example of the way the Clintons operate," White said. "The model has responsibility; she paid a high price for a feel-good moment with Bill Clinton. But he was riding the back of this small charity for what? A half-million bucks? I find it — what would be the word? — distasteful."

Sue Veres Royal, the former executive director of Nemcova's charity, Happy Hearts Fund, further told the paper that the payment offer to the Clinton Foundation was a "quid pro quo." Happy Hearts is a charity that helps rebuild schools after natural disasters. It was created after Nemcova survived the 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia and parts of Thailand.

"The Clinton Foundation had rejected the Happy Hearts Fund invitation more than once, until there was a thinly veiled solicitation and then the offer of an honorarium," she said. Veres Royal was also quoted saying, "Petra called me and said we have to include an honorarium for him — that they don’t look at these things unless money is offered, and it has to be $500,000."

The Times story, written by investigative reporter Deborah Sontag, described the charity-to-charity payment model as "extremely rare" for a fundraising event.

"When charities select an honoree for their fund-raising events, they generally expect that the award recipient will help them raise money by attracting new donors. But the Happy Hearts Fund raised less money at the gala featuring Mr. Clinton than it did at its previous one," Sontag wrote. "Further, it is extremely rare for honorees, or their foundations, to be paid from a gala’s proceeds, charity experts said — as it is for the proceeds to be diverted to a different cause. "

For its part, a Happy Hearts foundation spokeswoman told The Times that they paid the Clinton Foundation because the two organizations "have a shared goal of providing meaningful help to Haiti."

The Clinton Foundation is facing increased scrutiny as Clinton's wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is mounting her own campaign for president in 2016. Conservative critics in particular have sought to link the foundation's contributions to alleged favors doled out by Clinton's State Department. The Clintons have fiercely denied any such exchange took place.

Other controversies have hit the foundation's record-keeping operation and massive contributions from oppressive foreign governments.

Bill Clinton defends his foundation from attacks

The former president tells donors that the Clinton Foundation remains a nonpartisan philanthropy. '
It's the political season in America'

Kiev (AFP) - Germany's foreign minister warned Friday that the situation in Ukraine's separatist east was turning "very fragile" and required all sides to refocus their efforts on salvaging a three-month truce.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier flew into Kiev just days before Ukraine's Western-backed President Petro Poroshenko's peace envoy meets pro-Russian rebel negotiators in Minsk, Belarus in a desperate bid to keep all-out warfare from resuming on the European Union's eastern frontier.

In February a ceasefire agreement was reached in Minsk during marathon talks between the leaders of Germany and France, Poroshenko and Russia's Vladimir Putin. It marked the sides' second attempt at halting a 13-month war that has killed 6,300 and plunged East-West relations to a post-Cold War low.

The truce succeeded in containing the fighting but failed to put an end to daily clashes around some of the most disputed hotspots.

"We can see that the ceasefire today is very fragile, and this causes some alarms," Steinmeier told reporters after talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

"There are a lot of ceasefire violations," he said through his Ukrainian translator. "Now, we have to think and find a way to turn this into a more stable situation."

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A picture taken and released by the Ukrainian presidential press-service shows the President Poroshe …

But a Friday phone call between Putin and the German and French heads of state appeared only to highlight the sharp differences Moscow still has with the West over what the future of the ex-Soviet nation should hold.

Russia's emphatic denial of direct involvement in the war has stymied repeated Western attempts to establish an open dialogue with Putin that could calm security fears across eastern Europe and nudge Ukraine out of political and economic crisis.

The Kremlin said Putin pointed out to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande that "attacks by Ukrainian security forces on civilian targets that kill peaceful residents were becoming more frequent".

Hollande's office in turn said that he and Merkel stressed to Putin "the need for rapid progress in the implementation of all the measures adopted in Minsk".

- Battle for government port -

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A Ukrainian serviceman rests while manning a position on the frontline of fighting against pro-Russi …

The worst fighting has most recently gripped the eastern outskirts of the strategic pro-Kiev port of Mariupol and the Donetsk International Airport -- captured by the insurgents after months of attacks at the start of the year.

An AFP team saw government forces stationed about three kilometres (two miles) from the devastated transit hub come under heavy rocket-propelled grenade attack on Thursday evening.

The Ukrainian forces responded with their own heavy weapons fire and the clashes raged through the night and into Friday morning.

Kiev on Friday reported the death of one Ukrainian soldier and a "volunteer" who supported the government troops.

"The likelihood that military activities will intensify is high," Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak said.

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German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (left) speaks during a joint press conference with U …

- 'They are lying' -

Yatsenyuk on Friday openly derided Russia's attempts to pin the latest violence on the pro-European team that rose to power in Kiev after the bloody ouster of Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

"Russia is categorically refusing to allow Ukraine to restore control over its national border," Yatsenyuk said after his talks with Steinmeier.

"Russia's (claim) that Ukraine and the West are supposedly failing to fulfil the Minsk agreements are completely groundless," said Yatsenyuk.

"They are lying -- just like they always do."

Ukraine this month captured two fighters in the east who identified themselves as active members of the Russian armed forces. Both reported performing a special reconnaissance mission ordered by their commanders.

Putin argues that Russians fighting alongside the Ukrainian militants are either "volunteers" or off-duty soldiers who personally decided to join the war.

Dubai (AFP) - Yemen's ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh said in an interview broadcast Friday he had rejected "millions of dollars" Saudi Arabia offered him if he stood up to the Shiite rebels.

"They told us 'we'll pay you millions of dollars if you ally with us'" against the Huthis, Saleh told the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen television channel, adding that he rejected the offer.

"We will not let go of the Huthis," he said.

He said the former Saudi ambassador in Yemen "came to me with a message from the kingdom asking me to stand by (fugitive President Abedrabbo Mansour) Hadi and the Muslim Brotherhood... against the Huthis."

"I told them I support national unity for all political forces in Yemen," he said.

"Our difference with the Huthis... was administrative, not ideological," he said, speaking of his regime's nine wars with the rebels in their northern regions.

He accused the Sunni-ruled kingdom of seeking to sow "sedition" in Yemen, and said its "hatred" for the Huthis was "sectarian".

But "sooner or later we will hold talks with Saudi Arabia," he said.

Saleh himself belongs to the Iran-backed Huthis' Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam.

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Yemeni children run amidst the debris of a house, said to belong to a Huthi leader, destroyed in an …

The former strongman, who ruled Yemen for three decades before being forced out after a year-long popular uprising, insisted: "I will not accept power for myself or my son" Ahmed, who led the elite Republican Guard troops during his rule.

The interview took place in the rebel-held capital Sanaa.

Saleh accused Hadi, who sought refuge in Riyadh after rebels closed down on his last southern refuge, Aden, of having "left power to the Huthis and fled".

- Hadi 'is over' -

"Abedrabbo Mansour is over," he said.

Saudi-led coalition warplanes launched an air campaign against the Huthis and forces allied to Saleh in Yemen on March 26.

Saleh still heads Yemen's influential political party the General People's Congress, and many people among country's security forces remain loyal to him.

In the interview, he renewed calls for talks in Geneva between the Yemeni parties, as well as negotiations between Yemenis and Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations is trying to reschedule postponed peace talks in Geneva between Yemeni political forces.

Saleh said that both the United States and Iran are holding talks in neutral Oman to discuss mediation between Riyadh and Tehran.

Iranian media have reported that Iran's foreign minister held talks in Oman on Tuesday about ending the conflict in Yemen.

Oman, which has good relations with Iran, is the only one of the six Gulf Arab states that has not joined the coalition air strikes against its western neighbour.

A Huthi delegation was also reported to be in Oman on Thursday.

The rebel-controlled Sabanews.net quoted Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam as saying that talks were ongoing in the sultanate to discuss the coalition "aggression on Yemen", and that there was an "exchange of views and proposals with international and regional parties".

"This is taking place under the supervision of brothers in Oman," said Abdulsalam.

The Saudi-led coalition has imposed a complete air and naval blockade on impoverished Yemen.

According to the World Health Organization, the Yemen conflict has killed almost 2,000 people and wounded 8,000.