At least three soldiers were killed after dozens of Taliban militants stormed a check post in Pakistan's northwest tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said Saturday.

The attack took place at a paramilitary check post in Khadizai area on the outskirts of Kalaya, the main town in the lawless Orakzai district, a senior military officer said.

A young Palestinian was shot and wounded on Saturday in a clash with Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said.

The trouble erupted when a group of around 40 Israeli settlers entered the Burqin area in the north of the occupied territory and clashed with residents, they said.

Human Rights Watch on Friday called for Iraq to launch a criminal investigation into allegations that a bodyguard of the country's fugitive Sunni vice president who died in custody was tortured.

Amir Sarbut Zaidan al-Batawi died earlier this month in prison, and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi released photographs which his office said showed the 33-year-old was tortured, though security forces and judicial authorities insist he died of kidney failure.

The army resumed shelling the central Syrian protest cities of Homs and Hama on Saturday, monitors reported, as international envoy Kofi Annan headed to Russia in the latest push for peace.

Mortar shells rained down on the flashpoint Khaldiyeh district of Homs continuously for two hours in the morning, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that it had no information about casualties.

The Earth Day celebrations that are set for March 30 will take place at the Beaufort, or Shqeef, Castle in southern Lebanon, reported the National News Agency on Saturday.

Abdul Malek Sukkariyeh, the media coordinator of the rally, announced that the Lebanese army had officially permitted the staging of event.

The head of the takfiri network that has been recently discovered in Lebanon is currently residing in the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, reported Voice of Lebanon radio on Saturday.

Jamaa al-Islamiyya official Bassam Hammoud told the radio that Abu Mohammed Toufic Taha is controlling three al-Qaida cells in Lebanon and he works for Majed al-Majed, a Saudi member of the terrorist group.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour announced that Lebanon must help Syria end its crisis because it is a “sister state” with which “we share special and historic ties that cannot be abandoned,” reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.

He told the newspaper: “Lebanon will not recognize the Syrian National Council.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat demanded on Friday that the ruling Assad family in Syria be removed from the country.

He said: “Anyone who believes that a settlement can be reached with the Assad family is crazy.”

Hizbullah members prevented overnight the army and security forces from inspecting an arms shipment in the western Bekaa, reported MTV on Saturday.

It explained that the army and security forces in the region of Khirbet Qanafar sought to approach a truck loaded with weapons for the party, but the Hizbullah members prohibited them.

The head of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Defense Office Francois Roux warned against measures that may affect the tribunal’s credibility, reported As Safire newspaper on Saturday.

He told the newspaper that the failure to hand former General Security chief Jamil Sayyed documents related to the false witnesses file may harm the STL’s credibility.