A bomb wounded a former police sergeant and critically injured his three-year-old son in Libya's second city Benghazi on Tuesday evening, a security source told Agence France Presse.

It was the latest in a spate of attacks on security personnel who served under the dictatorship of Moammar Gadhafi and came as the U.N. mission expressed grave concern about the violence still plaguing Libya two years after its overthrow.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's office has used a new Instagram account to post photographs of him greeting supporters, and images of his wife Asma visiting hospital patients.

The official Syrian presidency Instagram account on the popular online photo sharing application is the latest social media platform used by Assad's office to bolster his image.

Iran has agreed to supply Damascus with $3.6 billion in oil in exchange for the right to invest in the country, Syria's state news agency SANA said on Tuesday.

"An agreement was signed (on Monday) in Tehran... by the Iranian and Syrian central banks, granting Syria a credit line worth $3.6 billion," it reported.

Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah pardoned on Tuesday all those who have been sentenced to jail for insulting him.

"On the occasion of the last 10 days of (the Muslim fasting month of) Ramadan, I am pleased to issue an emiri pardon for those who have been handed jail terms on charges of insulting the emir," he announced in a televised speech.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday again called on Egypt's military to show restraint in the wake of often deadly protests.

Hagel spoke to General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi by telephone after EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton paid a first-of-a-kind visit to ousted president Mohammed Morsi.

An Egyptian soldier was shot dead in the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, raising the 36-hour toll of security forces in the area to five, local sources said.

Medical and security sources said armed men had attacked a military building in Al-Arish, the regional capital of North Sinai, killing the soldier.

The U.N. mission in Libya said on Tuesday there was an urgent need for national dialogue and expressed grave concern at the latest violence rocking the troubled North African state.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya statement came after violence in Tripoli and Benghazi nearly two years after the fall of the regime of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

French President Francois Hollande will visit Israel and the Palestinian territories by the end of the year, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday, as a drive to reach a Middle East peace deal gathers pace.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are currently in Washington as part of a fresh U.S.-led initiative to negotiate a peace deal between the two sides after a three-year hiatus.

The Syrian opposition will form a provisional government in the second half of August after months of failed efforts, Syrian National Coalition chief Ahmad Jarba said on Tuesday.

"I expect a government in exile to be formed around 10 days after Eid al-Fitr," the Muslim feast that falls on August 8 or 9, he told AFP in Doha, which he is visiting to seek support.

The Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation jointly appealed Tuesday to warring parties in Syria to observe a ceasefire during next week's feast of Eid al-Fitr.

In their statement, the Arab League's Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi and his OIC counterpart Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu appealed for "a ceasefire and a cessation of violence in all its forms for the duration of the holy Eid al-Fitr holiday".