U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that "a lot of countries" are training Syrian rebels as part of stepped up efforts to topple President Bashar Assad's regime.

"It's one part of it. But other nations are doing other things. There are a lot of nations working at this. And so I think President Assad needs to read the tea leaves correctly," Kerry told Fox News during a visit to Qatar.

The car of Libya's interim leader came under fire in Tripoli as he left a chaotic session of the national assembly disrupted by protesters, without causing casualties, the interior minister said Wednesday.

"The car of the General National Congress speaker (Mohammed al-Megeryef) came under fire as assembly members left in a state of total confusion" on Tuesday night, Ashur Shwayel told a press conference.

Egypt's administrative court on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of controversial parliamentary elections scheduled for April 22, throwing the country deeper into political crisis.

Judge Abdel Meguid al-Moqanen said Islamist President Mohamed Morsi had ratified a new electoral law last month without sending it to the Supreme Constitutional Court for its approval, as required by the constitution.

A Jordanian MP, angered by a fellow deputy accusing the premier of corruption, tried to draw a pistol during a session of parliament on Wednesday but was circled by colleagues who talked him down.

Khalil Atiyeh, a deputy speaker, said MP Shadi al-Adwan was annoyed when fellow MP Zeid Shawakbeh accused Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur of corruption.

Tunisia's secular president said in comments published on Wednesday that Salafist hardliners blamed for deadly violence since the 2011 revolution should be fought but within the bounds of the law.

President Moncef Marzouki said there should be no return to the strong-arm tactics of ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, even after the February assassination of leftist politician Chokri Belaid that has sparked Tunisia's worst crisis since his overthrow.

Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Church enthroned a new patriarch during a ceremonial mass Wednesday that was held amid tight security in Baghdad.

The mass at St. Joseph's Chaldean church in downtown Baghdad marked the final step as Louis Sako, 64, replaced Emmanuel III Delly, who has retired.

Attacks in a western province of Iraq killed three members of the security forces and two civilians on Wednesday, police and a doctor said.

Gunmen shot dead two police and two civilians west of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, while a national security force member was killed by a magnetic "sticky bomb," also west of the city, a police captain said.

New clashes between police and protesters erupted on Wednesday in the Egyptian city of Port Said, the scene of several days of unrest, Agence France Presse reporters said.

Police and protesters lobbed rocks at each other under a volley of tear gas that caused several people to collapse. Gunfire could also be heard, as military planes circled low overhead.

Syrian state media paid homage to late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez on Wednesday, saying he had taken an "honorable" position on the two-year-old uprising against the Damascus regime.

Chavez "stood on the side of the Arabs' legitimate rights," said a commentary carried by state news agency SANA. "He took an honorable stance regarding the conspiracy against Syria."

The ill-treatment of Palestinian minors held within the Israeli military detention system is "widespread, systematic and institutionalized," a report Wednesday by the U.N. children's fund found.

UNICEF in the 22-page report that examined the Israeli military court system for holding Palestinian children found evidence of practices it said were "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment."