Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani man on Tuesday after he was convicted of smuggling a "large amount" of heroin into the kingdom, the interior ministry said.

"Salim Shah Sayed Shah, a Pakistani, was accused of smuggling a large amount of the heroin drug into the kingdom," said an interior ministry statement carried by state news agency SPA, adding that he was executed in the holy city of Mecca.

Yemen's armed forces killed 38 suspected members of al-Qaida in two days of air raids and shelling of their hideouts in the country's south, a government official said Tuesday.

"Thirty-eight members of al-Qaida were killed in shelling and air strikes that targeted their positions in Huroor throughout the past 48 hours," said the official who spoke from the nearby al-Qaida stronghold of Jaar.

Plans to evict a group of Israeli settlers from a contested home in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron appeared to be on hold on Tuesday, after Israel's prime minister intervened to seek a delay.

On Monday, Israel's civil administration, the military body which manages civilian affairs in parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control, ordered the settlers to evacuate the property by 3:00 pm (1200 GMT) on Tuesday.

Saudi newspapers on Tuesday waged a scathing campaign against Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over his implicit criticism of the kingdom and Qatar for their calls to arm Syrian rebels.

Some 146 deaths were reported on Monday as Syrian forces pressed their crackdown on dissent, pounding rebel bastions mainly in the restive north which also left many hurt, monitors said.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, reported the 146 deaths, which included 75 bodies that were found at a hospital in the central province of Homs.

Italy on Monday called on Syrian opposition groups to be "cohesive" and urged the U.N. Security Council to set a timeline for further pressure on President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"We stress the need that all political opposition forces must have a common agenda and in a cohesive way," Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said at a joint news conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh.

Syria has agreed to "immediately" start pulling troops out of protest cities, U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan said Monday but Western nations quickly expressed doubts that the new promises would be kept.

Annan said President Bashar al-Assad's foreign minister had agreed to complete a troop and heavy weapon withdrawal by April 10, U.S. ambassador Susan Rice told reporters after a U.N. Security Council meeting on the Syria crisis.

Sunday's "Friends of Syria" conference sidestepped solid measures against the Damascus regime for fear of getting sucked into a conflict that could defy control, analysts and experts said.

Although most countries are committed to a political transition that puts President Bashar al-Assad out of power, they are concerned with the military venture they might have to risk for that, observers suggested.

Red Cross chief Jakob Kellenberger is traveling to Syria Monday where he will meet ministers over humanitarian and detention issues, the ICRC relief agency said.

"I am determined to see the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent expand their presence, range and scope of activities to address the needs of vulnerable people. This will be a key element of my talks with the Syrian officials," said Kellenberger in a statement.

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox church has decided to boycott an Islamist-dominated panel charged with drafting the future constitution, the official MENA news agency reported on Monday.

The official MENA news agency reported that the decision was taken unanimously by the 20 members of the Holy Synod to remove the two church officials who sit on the committee.