Fierce clashes erupted overnight as Syrian forces hammered rebel positions around Damascus with artillery and air strikes, as part of an offensive aimed at securing the capital, a watchdog said Sunday.

The fighting broke out in Irbin, a town east of Damascus, as troops also shelled Zabadani to the northwest of the capital and the village of Mliha, leaving many people wounded, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Three women were elected to Kuwait's new parliament as the house now includes as many as 30 new faces following the polls that reportedly saw a 38.8 percent voter turnout.

Three women were elected to the new parliament compared to four in 2009, according to results released by the National Election Commission.

The air corridor over Iraq has emerged as a supply route for weapons for the beleaguered government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, including rockets, antitank missiles, rocket-propelled grenade and mortars, The New York Times reported late Saturday.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the newspaper said that to the disappointment of the administration of President Barack Obama, U.S. efforts to persuade the Iraqis to randomly inspect the flights have been largely unsuccessful.

President Mohammed Morsi called on Egyptians on Saturday to vote in a December 15 referendum on the controversial draft constitution at the heart of a political crisis, amid mass Islamist rallies in Cairo.

Morsi made the announcement following a ceremony where he received a copy of the charter from the head of the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly, boycotted by liberals and Christians, that adopted it the day before.

Internet and telephone services resumed in Damascus on Saturday after a three-day blackout, an AFP reporter and state news agency SANA said, as a watchdog said they were up in most parts of Syria.

"Internet is back in Damascus and in parts of Damascus province," the correspondent said, adding that mobile phone lines were also back up.

Fresh clashes erupted on Saturday in the flashpoint Tunisian town of Siliana, amid rising discontent over poor living conditions two years after the revolution, but a deal was struck aimed at satisfying protesters' demands.

In Siliana, where intense clashes have left more than 300 people wounded this week, around 100 stone-throwing youths attacked police, injuring one of them in the head, an AFP journalist reported. The police fired tear gas in response.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday warned of the danger of "ethnic conflict" in Iraq, after negotiations aimed at easing Arab-Kurd tensions in the country's north stalled this week.

"If conflict erupts, it would be unfortunate and painful, and it will be an ethnic conflict" that is "not in the interest of Kurds nor Arabs nor Turkmen," Maliki told a news conference in Baghdad.

France on Saturday warned Israel not to go through with a plan for 3,000 settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, arguing it would constitute a serious obstacle to a peace deal with the Palestinians.

An Israeli official earlier confirmed a report in the Haaretz newspaper that the authorities were planning to build the new settlements in response to a historic U.N. vote Thursday recognizing Palestine as a non-member state of the world body.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due home from New York to a hero's welcome on Sunday, after the United Nations voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member state.

The main official event will be a celebratory rally and a speech by Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters, starting at midday (10:00 GMT).

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called Saturday for an "independent Palestinian state" and urged the international community not to allow Israel to undermine peace efforts in the Middle East.

Davutoglu, speaking at the opening of the Turkish-Arab Forum in Istanbul, welcomed the upgrading of the Palestinians' status at the United Nations as a "significant step."