Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea ruled out the possibility that Hizbullah and Iran would retaliate to a U.S.-led strike against Syria, reported As Safir newspaper on Monday.

He told the daily: “I assume that Hizbullah and Iran are wise enough to avoid slipping into a large-scale war.”

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani rejected Saturday remarks attributed to him in which he allegedly criticized Tehran's chief regional ally, Syria, for using chemical weapons against civilians.

The rejection appeared on Rafsanjani's personal website after ultra-conservatives demanded the 79-year-old former two-time president clarify his stance on Syria.

Iraq has ordered Iranian exiles to move from a camp where 52 of their members were killed a week ago "without delay", a government official and the U.N. said Saturday.

Baghdad opened a probe into the events surrounding the deaths of the members of the People's Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran, which occurred on Sunday at Camp Ashraf in Diyala province, but accounts of the unrest still differ markedly.

At least one person was killed and four wounded Saturday when angry demonstrators tried to storm the Iranian consulate in western Afghanistan during a protest over visas, officials said.

Around 200 protestors took to the streets of Herat city and tried to attack the consulate with rocks and sticks, deputy provincial police chief Abdul Hamid Hamidi told Agence France Presse.

Iran's foreign minister said on Facebook that Tehran condemns the World War II Nazi massacre of the Jews, in stark contract to Holocaust denials by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We condemn the massacre of Jews by the Nazis, and we condemn the massacre of Palestinians by the Zionists," Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his Facebook page, where he published the text of an interview he gave to the Tasnim news agency.

Iran is carefully watching the divisive U.S. debate on whether to launch military strikes against its chief ally, Syria, but the Obama administration may be at risk of sending Tehran the wrong message, analysts warn.

In days of passionate testimony, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said America and the world must send a warning to Iran and others that they will not turn a blind eye to the use of non-conventional arms amid accusations the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad unleashed chemical weapons on his people.

The United States urged Iran Thursday to hold substantive talks on its nuclear program, as Tehran revealed that the foreign ministry had now been tasked with leading the negotiations.

"We reiterate our hope that the Iranian government will engage substantively with the international community to reach a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program and to cooperate fully with the IAEA in its investigation," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Al-Mustaqbal MP Khaled al-Daher slammed on Thursday the critics of the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch, accusing them of serving the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to defend Iran's project in the region.

“The Lebanese should protect Lebanon by supporting the security forces,” he said at a press conference he held in the northern city of Tripoli.

An Indian oil tanker seized by Iran in August for allegedly polluting Gulf waters has been allowed to leave the port where it was held, an Iranian official said Thursday.

The Indian government-owned MT Desh Shanti was on its way back to India with a load of Iraqi crude when the Iranian navy stopped it last month for allegedly polluting the waters.

President Vladimir Putin warned the West against taking one-sided action in Syria but also said Russia "doesn't exclude" supporting a U.N. resolution on punitive military strikes if it is proved that Damascus used poison gas on its own people.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press and Russia's state Channel 1 television, Putin said Moscow has provided some components of the S-300 air defense missile system to Syria but has frozen further shipments. He suggested that Russia may sell the potent missile systems elsewhere if Western nations attack Syria without U.N. Security Council backing.