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Israel Army Shoots Syrian 'with Cutters' on Golan Fence

Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a Syrian man trying to breach a frontier fence in the southern Golan with a pair of wire cutters on Saturday, a military spokeswoman said.

Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich said Israeli forces "identified a civilian from Syria, a man approaching the border fence. The man was holding hydraulic cutters and tried to cut the fence.

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Syrian Army Controls All of Damascus

The Syrian army now has the whole of the capital under its control, a brigadier-general on Saturday told journalists visiting the neighborhood of Tadamun, the scene of heavy fighting earlier.

"We have cleansed all the districts of Damascus, from Al-Midan to Mazzeh, from Al-Hajar Al-Aswad to Qadam... to Tadamun," said the general who led the military operation in Tadamun, refusing to give his name.

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Algeria to Hold Local Polls on Nov 29

Local elections are to be held in Algeria on November 29, Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia announced on Saturday, quoted by Algerian radio.

"The local elections will take place on November 29" for 1,541 municipal councils and 48 general (wilaya) councils, Kablia said at a forum in Algiers organized by Liberte newspaper.

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Egypt Denounces Anti-Muslim Violence in Myanmar

Egypt's foreign ministry Saturday denounced attacks against Myanmar's Muslim minority, saying its envoy in the Buddhist-majority East Asian country had seen extensive damage caused by sectarian clashes.

The ministry statement came a day after protesters in Cairo burnt the flag of Myanmar's mission.

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Qatar Says New Syria Envoy Must have New Mandate

Arab states will not accept a new international envoy to Syria after Kofi Annan's resignation unless his or her mandate is to clearly negotiate a transfer of power, Qatar's prime minister said on Saturday.

"Arab nations will not accept a new envoy with the same mandate that was given to Annan," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told Al-Jazeera of the outgoing U.N. and Arab League envoy, whose six-point plan for peace was never implemented.

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Red Cross Urges Respect for Humanitarian Laws in Syria

The International Committee of the Red Cross Saturday appealed to all parties in the conflict in Syria to respect international humanitarian law as the violence endangers more civilians.

"We urge all parties involved in the fighting to fulfill their obligations under international humanitarian law," said Robert Mardini, the ICRC's head of operations for the Near and Middle East, in a statement.

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Iraq MP Survives Roadside Bomb Blast

Hamed al-Mutlak, a Sunni MP and brother to one of Iraq's deputy prime ministers, said he survived a roadside bomb attack west of Baghdad on Saturday that wounded at least one of his guards.

"A roadside bomb exploded on the main road in Abu Ghraib when we passed," Mutlak, an MP in the secular, Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, told Agence France Presse, adding that one of his bodyguards was lightly wounded.

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Iran Says Arming Syria Rebels has 'Bad Implications' for Region

The arming of Syria's rebels will have "very bad implications in the region," Iran's Defense Minister Ahmed Vahidi said on Saturday, according to state television.

He added that "the region will face a major crisis if foreign forces, currently (covertly) present in Syria, enter the scene" and intervene militarily.

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48 Iran Pilgrims Abducted in Damascus

Forty-eight Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped from a bus in the Syrian capital on Saturday, their embassy's consular chief in Damascus told Iran's state television.

"Armed terrorist groups kidnapped 48 Iranian pilgrims on their way to the airport," Majid Kamjou told the IRIB network, which gave the report on its website.

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Syrian Security Official Says 'Battle for Aleppo has Not Begun'

The battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and shelling by troops is just the start of what is to come, a senior Syrian security official in the region said on Saturday.

"The battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and what is happening now is just the appetizer," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, adding: "The main course will come later."

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