The U.S. embassy in Tunis said Wednesday it was "deeply troubled" by the leniency of two-year suspended sentences handed out to 20 people implicated in an attack on the mission.

"We are deeply troubled by reports of suspended sentences. The verdicts do not correspond appropriately to the extent and severity of the damage and violence that took place on September 14, 2012," the embassy said in a statement.

Three Libyan soldiers died in a bomb attack on their patrol in the eastern city of Benghazi, a military spokesman said on Wednesday, updating an earlier toll.

"An explosive device that was concealed in a rubbish bin blew up near a patrol of the Al-Khandak Brigades," killing one soldier on the spot while the other two later died of their injuries, said Abdullah al-Shaafi.

Iran on Wednesday opened a forum aimed at finding a political solution to the crisis in Syria attended by delegates from around 40 countries but without any Syrian representation.

The meeting comes as the United States and Russia prepare to host a conference in Geneva next month aimed at getting representatives of President Bashar Assad's regime and of rebel groups to discuss ways to end fighting that has claimed some 94,000 lives.

Britain last week informed the United Nations of "new incidents" of apparent chemical weapons use in Syria, diplomats said Wednesday.

If confirmed, the attacks would heap further pressure on Western countries supporting Syrian rebels to intervene in the conflict, which the United Nations says has claimed more than 70,000 lives.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arrived Wednesday at a stalled meeting of Syria's divided opposition in Istanbul, in what is likely an effort to push for more progress at talks deadlocked by infighting.

U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and a top French diplomat on Syria also arrived at the meeting of the main opposition National Coalition, which has failed to find common ground on key issues including whether to take part in a peace conference proposed by the United States and Russia.

Three young European women with topless protest group Femen were arrested Wednesday after baring their breasts in Tunis, a first in the Arab world that sparked scuffles outside the Tunisian capital's main courthouse.

Standing on a wall in front of the railings outside the courthouse, the women, two French and the other German, shouted: "Free Amina," in support of a young Tunisian woman detained while protesting against hardline Islamists and awaiting trial on Thursday.

The U.N.'s top rights body on Wednesday voted to condemn the Syrian regime's use of foreign fighters in the besieged town of Qusayr and ordered an urgent probe into the killings in the town.

Thirty-six of the U.N. Human Rights Council's 47 member states voted in favor of the resolution that implicitly refers to the involvement of fighters from Hizbullah in the fierce battle for the strategic town.

The eight hopefuls seeking Iran's highest elected office are to take part in a televised group debate on Friday, with its ailing economy hit by international sanctions topping the agenda.

Campaigning for the June 14 poll officially began last week after Iran's electoral watchdog, the Guardians Council, approved the eight -- including several figures close to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- from a field of nearly 700 would-be candidates.

Israel is gearing up for a deterioration in the regional situation, with a growing number of new threats facing the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

Netanyahu made the comments as he watched an exercise simulating the response to a chemical attack on a residential neighborhood in Jerusalem as part of an annual civil defense drill.

Russia warned on Wednesday that the European Union's decision to lift its arms embargo on the Syrian rebels harmed joint Russian-U.S. efforts for an international peace conference over the 26-month crisis.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the EU's original ban on arming the opposition made little sense because the 27-nation bloc's own laws prohibited it from sending weapons to "non-state entities" -- leaderships not formally recognized by the United Nations.