Human rights group Amnesty International said Wednesday that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar's call for fighters to reduce civilian casualties was "hypocritical".

Amnesty said the statement issued in Omar's name last week to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha was "more about propaganda and less about actually protecting civilians".

The deputy chief of Iran's armed forces warned on Wednesday that any attack by Israel would bring "destruction" of the Jewish state and that Iran's retaliation would be felt outside the Middle East as well.

Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri stressed that the Israeli nuclear site of Dimona was "the most accessible" target, and that "our response would not be limited to the Middle East," according to an interview given to the Iranian Arabic-language channel al-Alam.

The U.N. atomic agency has "serious concerns" about Iran's nuclear activities, and has "credible" information Tehran may have worked on developing nuclear weapons, a report seen by Agence France Presse said Tuesday.

"The agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," the keenly awaited International Atomic Energy Agency report said.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Tuesday that another one-way ticket awaits former Prime Minister Saad Hariri if he returns to Lebanon, noting that the Syrian crisis is over.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “He can say whatever he wants. Who asked him not to return? There is another type of one-way ticket if he wants to return to Lebanon and he knows it.”

More than 3,500 people have been killed in the Syrian regime's brutal crackdown on dissent, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday, deploring the slaughter that went on despite a peace plan.

"The brutal crackdown on the dissent in Syria has so far claimed the lives of more than 3,500 Syrians," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Iran said on Tuesday that the West had no serious proof it was developing nuclear weapons, ahead of a report by the U.N. atomic watchdog that is expected to provide new evidence against Tehran.

"There is no serious proof that Iran is going to create a nuclear warhead," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said, responding to a question about the IAEA report during a visit to neighboring Armenia.

Germany said Monday it would call for fresh "pressure" on Iran to comply with international commitments on its nuclear program if a key report this week reveals further defiance.

A foreign ministry spokesman said ahead of the report from the U.N. atomic watchdog, which diplomats say contains fresh evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons drive, that Berlin remained suspicious of Tehran's plans.

Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami warned the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday not to become "an instrument without will in the hands of the United States" against Iran.

The hardline cleric hit out at IAEA director general Yukiya Amano in an address during communal prayers in Tehran marking the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast.

Syria's opposition called for "international protection for civilians" in the central city of Homs, besieged by the forces of President Bashar Assad and theatre of deadly clashes between soldiers and alleged army deserters.

Declaring Homs a "humanitarian disaster area," the Syrian National Council urged the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League to act "to stop the massacre committed by the regime."

One U.N. peacekeeper was killed and two others injured Sunday in an attack on a patrol in the southern part of Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region, the United Nations said in a statement.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack on the patrol near Nyala and said he expects the government in Khartoum to "swiftly bring those responsible for this reprehensible act to justice," his spokesperson said.