Any use by the Syrian regime of chemical weapons against its own people would spark an immediate reaction by the international community, NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned Tuesday.

"The possible use of chemical weapons would be completely unacceptable to the whole international community and and I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community," Rasmussen said.

Gunmen armed with silenced weapons attacked a house in east Baghdad on Tuesday, killing a man, his wife and four children, a security official and a medic said.

The attack took place in the Zayouna area, an interior ministry official said, adding that the motive for the crime was not known.

Egyptian independent and opposition newspapers refused to publish their Tuesday editions in protest against lack of press freedom in the country's draft constitution, set for a popular referendum on December 15.

The move was in order to "stand up to tyranny," independent daily Al-Tahrir said on its website.

A Syrian journalist working for a government newspaper was killed in a south Damascus neighborhood on Tuesday, state television announced.

"An armed terrorist group assassinated the journalist Naji Assaad in the Tadamun district of Damascus as he was on his way to the Tishreen newspaper," the broadcaster said.

The Syrian army shelled several areas east and southwest of Damascus early Tuesday hours after radical Islamist fighters seized a village in an eastern province bordering Iraq, a watchdog said.

"The army shelled the orchards in the Eastern Ghuta region (east of the capital), as it pressed on with its military campaign in the area," said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Jordan's King Abdullah II arrives in Ramallah on Thursday on his first visit since the Palestinians won U.N. recognition as a non-member state, a senior official told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"King Abdullah will visit the state of Palestine the day after tomorrow, on Thursday, in the first visit by a top official to the Palestinian state after we received U.N. recognition," said Nimr Hammad, political adviser to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Iran on Tuesday brushed away a renewed call from the United Arab Emirates for the two countries to resolve through discussion their vying claims to three strategic islands in the Gulf.

"Repeating baseless claims will not have any influence on existing realities. The three Iranian islands have been and will remain an integral part of the Islamic Republic of Iran's territory," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister urged on Tuesday the international community to have a unified position over Syria after the war-torn country's opposition formed a coalition last month.

"We see in forming the new Syrian coalition an important positive step towards uniting the opposition under one banner," Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters.

Germany warned Syria Tuesday against any use of chemical weapons, ahead of a NATO meeting on Turkey's request for deployment of Patriot missiles to counter a potential threat from its neighbor.

"I can only warn the Syrian regime: a use of chemical weapons would be totally unacceptable," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said ahead of the gathering of his NATO counterparts in Brussels.

A Tunisian suspected of involvement in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed is refusing to be interrogated by FBI agents, his lawyer told Agence France Presse.

"They wanted to interrogate him as a witness, but he has refused," Abdelbasset Ben Mbarek said late on Monday, referring to his client Ali Hamzi, and denouncing what he called "interference" in the Tunisian judicial system.