Accused of the most barbaric massacres since the start of the revolt in Syria, the shabiha are feared militiamen and tools of a regime seeking to dissociate itself from atrocities, experts and activists say.

While there is no hard evidence of the involvement of these gunmen in the repression, United Nations officials have expressed "strong suspicions" about their role, notably in the Houla massacre that left 108 dead on May 25 and 26.

France said Monday it will hold talks with Russia on its idea of an international Syria conference including Iran and urged the new head of the Syrian National Council to unite the opposition.

"We will have new contacts with Russia this week on the subject," a ministry spokesman, Vincent Floreani, told a press conference.

A Bahraini juvenile court released on Monday a Shiite minor who is on trial for disturbing security by blocking a road outside the capital, lawyers said.

The court ordered police to handover Ali Hasan, 11, to his parents, and adjourned the trial to June 20, a lawyer said, asking not to be named.

Libya has put a team of four International Criminal Court envoys in "preventive" detention in prison for 45 days while investigations are conducted, a judicial source said on Monday.

"A decision was made to put them in preventive detention for 45 days while investigations are conducted," an official in the attorney general's office told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who has been in critical condition since moving to prison, was defibrillated twice after his heart stopped on Monday, a prison hospital source told Agence France Presse.

Mubarak's "heart stopped twice. Doctors had to use a defibrillator. He has been in and out of consciousness and has been refusing food," the source said.

Yemeni troops seized control of an al-Qaida munitions factory in the southern Abyan province on Monday as battles for control of the restive region killed 26 militants, local and military officials said.

The bodies of 12 militants were discovered inside the factory which lies on the outskirts of the al-Qaida stronghold of Jaar, a military official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Israel Prisons Service said on Monday that a Palestinian prisoner who has been on hunger strike for more than 80 days, had ended his protest, but Palestinian sources, including his lawyer, denied the claim.

"(Mahmoud) Sarsak ended his hunger strike," IPS spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told Agence France Presse, saying he had taken the decision to end his fast after consulting his lawyer and the prison administration.

Helicopter gunships on Monday fired on rebels in central and northwestern Syria in a bid to snuff out armed opposition as violence killed 103 people across the country, a watchdog and activists said.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said regime forces killed 89 people across the country, including women, children and rebels.

Syrian rebel army chief, Colonel Riyadh Asaad, denied in comments published Monday that Kuwaitis were fighting alongside his men against forces of President Bashar Assad's regime.

"Reports indicating the presence of Arab fighters (in Syria) are totally baseless," Asaad was quoted as saying by Kuwait's al-Watan newspaper.

Israel's deputy military chief has warned that Syria has the biggest chemical weapons stocks in the world and missiles and rockets that can reach any point in Israel.

Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh also said if Syria had the chance, it would "treat us the same way it treats its own people."