Authorities locked down Afghanistan's capital Monday as tens of thousands of ethnic Hazaras marched through the streets calling on the government to reroute a power line through their poverty-stricken province in a massive protest that reflected public dismay with the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Amid concerns the protest could turn violent, roads leading into central Kabul's commercial district were blocked to all vehicle and foot traffic by police, who shipping containers to prevent the marchers reaching the presidential palace.

An Afghan official says at least three policemen have died after a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near a police training base in southern Helmand province.

Omar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said Saturday that 12 others, including two civilians, were wounded in the attack.

Iran is staging an international cartoon contest on the Holocaust, saying it is not a denial of the Nazi massacre.

Masuod Shojai-Tabatabai, the secretary of the contest, said Saturday, that they have no interest in denying the Holocaust or "ridiculing its victims."

The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) is set to hold a special meeting on Saturday to discuss the U.S. law that targets the sources of funding of Hizbullah which triggered dismay among the party's officials.

The meeting will be chaired by the ABL chief Joseph Tarabay and comes after Hizbullah's Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc criticized the central bank for saying it would abide by a U.S. law that came into effect last month and which the party's lawmakers said violates Lebanon's sovereignty.

Former Argentine President Carlos Menem said Friday he believes his son was killed by Hizbullah, which prosecutors also suspect was behind two 1990s bombings in Buenos Aires.

In testimony to a judge overseeing the investigation of his son's death 21 years ago, Menem said that then-Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella had told him he heard through foreign embassies of Hizbullah's alleged involvement.

Hizbullah's involvement in the conflicts in Syria and more recently Iraq risks a spillover of sectarian tensions into Lebanon where the Islamic State extremist group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front are reported to be expanding, a U.N. envoy warned Friday.

Terje Roed-Larsen expressed serious concern that not only have Hizbullah and other militias continued their activities since the Security Council ordered them to disband in 2004 "but if anything they have expanded." He also expressed concern at the reported expansion of extremist groups, mostly in Palestinian refugee camps.

Top military commander Mustafa Badreddine, who died in a mysterious blast in Damascus, is the latest of a number of senior figures from Hizbullah to be killed in past years.

Hizbullah announced on Friday the death of its prominent commander Mustafa Badreddine in an attack in the Syrian capital Damascus.

The party did not disclose the nature of the blast that killed Badreddine, speculating that it could have been on the ground or that it may have been an airstrike.

A Hizbullah minister warned during a cabinet session Thursday that a “red line” was crossed, after two Lebanese banks reportedly suspended three Hizbullah-linked accounts in conformity with a U.S. sanctions law.

“Two Lebanese banks have suspended the accounts of two Loyalty to Resistance bloc MPs and the account of the daughter of an ex-MP who was in the bloc,” MTV and LBCI reported.

Activists say a coalition of Syrian rebels and hard-line jihadists have seized a strategic village from pro-government forces just 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the contested city of Aleppo.

The Britain-based monitoring group The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at Friday that least 43 insurgents and 30 pro-government fighters died in the battle for Khan Touman.