Two young men have been arrested after seven graves were desecrated in a Christian cemetery of Rouiba, eastern Algeria, the country's media reported on Thursday.

The two youths, aged 19 and 26, appeared in court "for desecration of graves and put in custody," a police source was quoted as saying in the media. No other details were provided.

August is already the deadliest single month of the Syria conflict with over 4,000 people killed, a watchdog said Friday, amid increasing macabre reports of dozens of bodies found bound and shot in the head.

At least 3,000 civilians and rebels have been killed in just over three weeks, in addition to 918 soldiers and 38 deserters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Gaza Strip's Hamas government said on Friday that prime minister Ismail Haniya was planning cabinet reshuffle which he would ask parliament to endorse.

"The prime minister has ended consultation on a reshuffle, which is expected to be presented soon to the legislative council for a vote of confidence," Haniya's office said in a statement.

Attacks on Shiites in Baghdad and north of the capital killed four people on Friday, after the conclusion of the Eid festival and as al-Qaida claimed a series of attacks earlier in the summer.

In the deadliest attack, two explosions struck the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in north Baghdad at around 12:30 pm (0930 GMT) as worshippers were gathering for prayers on the Muslim day of rest.

A Swiss radiology lab said Friday it will test the remains of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for polonium poisoning after receiving the go-ahead from his widow.

The experts from the Lausanne University Hospital Center, which also got the green light from the Palestinian Authority, will travel to the West Bank to take samples from the body, a spokesman for the lab said.

Al-Qaida's front group in Iraq claimed it carried out a series of attacks, mostly on security forces, in the western province of Anbar in June and July, a statement posted on jihadist forums said.

The 43 attacks purportedly carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) were largely in the form of bombings and shootings against Iraqi soldiers, police and anti-Qaida militiamen known as the Sahwa, according to the statement, which was posted on Wednesday.

At least 129 people were killed across Syria on Friday as warplanes and artillery again pounded the northern hub of Aleppo and several other areas across the country, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said August is already the deadliest single month of the conflict with more than 4,000 people killed in barely three weeks, and an overall death toll of around 24,500.

Clashes erupted between rival tribes in the Libyan town of Zliten late Thursday killing two people, a local official said, in the latest tribal or ethnic violence since the ouster of Moamer Kadhafi's iron-fisted regime.

"Anti-aircraft guns, rocket propelled grenades and light weapons were used in the fighting," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity. "So far, we have a toll of two dead and several wounded."

U.S. military planners are studying contingency plans for a potential mission in Syria without precedent -- securing the regime's chemical weapons in the midst of a raging civil war, officials and experts said.

No military action is imminent at the moment, according to officials, but the Pentagon is grappling with an array of hellish scenarios that could emerge as the conflict escalates, with the Damascus regime possibly losing control of its chemical arsenal.

More than 100 tanks have been seized from a militia loyal to Libya's ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi that posed as "revolutionaries" in the region of Tarhuna, the interior ministry said on Thursday.

A ministry official said an investigation into twin car bomb attacks on Sunday helped to detect the militia housed in barracks in Souk al-Ahad near Tarhuna, 60 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Tripoli.