France concluded on Wednesday two weeks of war games with the United Arab Emirates, which officials from both sides insisted were not related to regional tensions involving Iran.

The exercises, held every four years, came after a simmering row over ownership of three Gulf islands contested by the Emirates and Iran, and the United States' deployment of cutting-edge F-22 fighter jets to the UAE.

A bodyguard working for one of the main parties in Iraq's Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, which has clashed politically with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, was killed on Wednesday, officials said.

Latif Ramadan Jassim was on duty near the headquarters of the Wifaq (Accord) party in Zeitun, west Baghdad, when he was stabbed to death on Wednesday morning, party spokeswoman and MP Intisar Allawi told AFP.

A Palestinian prisoner who on Wednesday marked his 64th day on hunger strike has been transferred from an Israeli prison infirmary to a civilian hospital, his lawyer told Agence France Presse.

Jamil Khatib said his 27-year-old client Bilal Diab had been transferred from the infirmary at Ramle prison near Tel Aviv to the nearby Assaf HaRofeh hospital on Tuesday lunchtime.

Two Egyptian presidential candidates decided on Wednesday to temporarily suspend their campaigns over clashes in central Cairo that left twelve people dead.

The Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi told reporters he decided to suspend his campaign for 48 hours "in solidarity with the protesters."

A United Nations official is in Syria to assess the humanitarian needs in the strife-torn country, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Damascus told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

"Philippe Lazzarini, deputy to (U.N. humanitarian chief) Valerie Amos, is visiting Syria to coordinate with the Syrian government to assess humanitarian needs and direct distribution of aid," Khaled al-Masri said.

Violence against journalists and restrictions on media have worsened in the past year in Iraq, a local rights group said, in a country already thought to have among the worst press freedoms in the world.

The statement by the Iraq-based Journalism Freedoms Observatory (JFO), issued ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Thursday, voiced concern over what it said were arbitrary arrests, restrictions on movement and reporting and attacks on media workers, including some by security forces.

Fifteen Syrian regime troops, including two colonels, were killed in an ambush by rebels at dawn Wednesday in the northern province of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based watchdog said the ambush took place near the village of al-Rai, scene of clashes between opposition fighters and regime forces.

Kuwait and Iraq have jointly asked the United Nations to start repairing border markers, delayed for years due to Iraqi objections, a senior Kuwaiti official said on Wednesday.

Kuwait's permanent representative to the UN. .Mansour al-Oteibi told the official KUNA news agency the request was made in a joint letter by him and his Iraqi counterpart, Hamed al-Bayati, on Tuesday.

Syrian forces committed war crimes in the province of Idlib during an offensive shortly before a nationwide ceasefire came into effect April 12, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

"Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one town in Idlib after another," Anna Neistat, associate director for programs and emergencies at HRW, said in a statement.

Thugs attacked an anti-military protest near the Defense Ministry in Cairo on Wednesday and 20 people were killed, officials said, in the politically tense run-up to the first post-uprising presidential election.

The dawn assault sparked fierce clashes between the unidentified attackers and the protesters, who have been there for days calling for an end to military rule, with both sides hurling petrol bombs and rocks, the official said.