Libya's new Prime Minister Ali Zeidan on Tuesday presented his 30-member cabinet to the national assembly for approval in the hope of forming a coalition government after his predecessor failed.

Zeidan told the General National Congress, in a televised address, that he had included the main political parties in his line-up, among them the liberal National Forces Alliance and the Islamist Justice and Construction Party, while some top posts were given to independents.

Turkey is ruling out any dialogue with the Syrian regime, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday, a day after Moscow called for negotiations with Damascus as the only way to end the escalating conflict.

"There is no point in engaging in dialogue with a regime that continues to carry out such a massacre against its own people, even during (the Muslim festival of) Eid al-Adha," Davutoglu said at a news conference.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani has accused the Syrian regime, with the complicity of the international community, of waging a "war of extermination" against its people.

Sheikh Hamad in an interview with Al-Jazeera satellite channel late on Monday took issue with U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who earlier in the day had characterized the deadly conflict ravaging Syria as a "civil war."

Fierce clashes broke out before dawn Tuesday in a major Palestinian refugee camp south of Syria's capital, pitting rebels against troops backed by pro-regime Palestinian fighters, activists and a watchdog said.

The fresh violence came after the feast of Eid al-Adha came to a close on Monday, with 560 people, including 235 civilians, reported killed during a failed ceasefire attempt over the four-day Muslim holiday.

Libya's defense minister said Monday that the army has no control over Bani Walid, one of the last bastions of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, and that armed groups there prevent families from returning home.

"The chief of staff has no control over the town and therefore armed men are able to prevent families from coming back," Osama al-Jueili told journalists in Tripoli, adding that "gunmen" hold a checkpoint leading to the town.

The Syrian regime may be their sworn enemy, but rebels fighting to bring down President Bashar Assad say they pay hard cash to government agents for guns and bullets.

For Syria's plethora of armed opposition groups, obtaining weapons is a constant struggle. Furious with the West for failing to provide heavy weaponry, they say they have little choice but to line Assad's coffers.

Tunisia's security forces union called on its members to wear red armbands for three days starting Monday, in protest against a suspected Islamist attack on a police officer.

Wissam Ben Slimane, the security chief of the Tunis suburb Manouba, told state television he was attacked by a hatchet-wielding assailant overnight Saturday to Sunday.

Explosions shook Syria's capital on Monday as warplanes launched their heaviest air raids yet and two car bombs struck, with the U.N.-Arab League peace envoy saying the conflict was going from bad to worse.

The air raid blasts, heard coming from several outlying districts, rattled windows in the city center and were among the most intense in Damascus since the beginning of Syria's 19-month conflict, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

The Kurdish rebel sits fiddling with his Kalashnikov looking bored when a comrade suddenly breaks into screams of "Allahu akbar" as a series of explosions reverberate from the front line.

"Take it easy, take it easy, he can't hear you," says the Kurd, sitting next to a pile of broken glass on the street, his jeans rolled up to reveal knock-off black plimsolls with the word "PRADA" written on the label.

Egypt's Coptic Christians voted on Monday for a new leader to succeed Pope Shenuda III, who died in March leaving behind a community anxious about its status under an Islamist-led government.

Nearly 2,500 eligible voters made up of Coptic public officials, MPs, journalists, local councillors were casting their ballots in Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral, seat of the Coptic papacy, to choose from among the five candidates.