At least 74 people were killed and hundreds injured when rival fans clashed Wednesday after a football match in Port Said, highlighting a security vacuum in post-revolution Egypt.

In one of the deadliest incidents in the sport's history, violence erupted as soon as the referee blew the final whistle in a match which saw home team al-Masri beat Cairo's al-Ahly 3-1.

Arab ministers will meet February 11 to review their suspended observer mission to Syria, postponing talks as a U.N. vote on the country's bloodshed is delayed, an Arab League official said on Wednesday.

The official said a meeting of foreign ministers, planned for February 5 in Doha, has been rescheduled for February 11 in Cairo where the League has its headquarters.

A gunbattle erupted Wednesday near the beach house of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son, Saadi, in central Tripoli, Agence France Presse correspondents reported.

Thick smoke billowed from near the house as rival militias, using heavy machineguns, clashed in the mostly business district not far from luxurious hotels like Corinthia Bab al-Africa and the yet-to-open J W Mariott.

Eleven Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped on Wednesday in Syria, in the latest such incident in the unrest-swept Arab state, the state news agency IRNA reported.

It said the latest case raised to 29 the number of Iranians abducted in Syria since December. The foreign ministry has urged Damascus "to use all means ... to release" Iranian nationals.

A top Bahraini interior ministry official said on Wednesday that some 100 jailed activists were still on a hunger strike after nearly three days, but denied claims that tear gas was used against inmates.

"Today, the number of prisoners on hunger strike has dropped to around 100. Yesterday there were 180," Major General Ibrahim al-Ghaith told Agence France Presse.

The Syrian crisis that began as a peaceful revolt is quickly turning into a full-blown insurgency pitting an increasingly militarized opposition against a powerful regime bent on repression, analysts say.

"It is the beginning of an all-out armed conflict," said Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Fresh violence killed at least 56 civilians, 15 soldiers and 14 rebels in Syria on Wednesday after Western powers and the Arab League demanded immediate U.N. action to stop the regime's "killing machine" but holdout Russia said any vote needed more time.

Wrangling at the United Nations came as fierce clashes raged across Syria's powder keg regions between President Bashar al-Assad's security forces and rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army.

Six people are to go on trial suspected of planning attacks on a Kuwaiti port project in the Gulf that is disputed by Iraq, a judiciary official said on Wednesday.

"The police have arrested six people accused of preparing an attack on Mubarak port," said a spokesman for the court of appeal in Nasiriyah, 305 kilometers south of Baghdad.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, meeting officials in Jerusalem on Wednesday, called on Israel to refrain from settlement activity and offer the Palestinians a "goodwill gesture" to help kickstart peace talks.

But he appeared to be rebuffed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he considered the issue of Israel's settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem something to be discussed during negotiations, not before.

Russia will use its veto to block any U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria that it deems to be unacceptable, Moscow's envoy to the United Nations said on Wednesday, as Paris said Russia has now a "less negative" attitude towards a draft resolution proposed by the West and the Arab League.

"If the text is unacceptable then we will vote against," Vitaly Churkin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.