Syrian warplanes launched two strikes on Qaboon in northeastern Damascus on Wednesday, as rebels fighters seized three army posts near the ceasefire line with Israel, a watchdog said.

"Two air strikes were carried out on rebel-held buildings in Qaboon," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that violence in Damascus has risen after insurgents seized control of Jobar district in the city's east.

Iran's foreign ministry on Wednesday criticized as a "dangerous precedent" the Arab League's decision to allocate Syria's long-vacant seat to the Syrian opposition.

Opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib took Syria's seat at the League on Tuesday as Arab leaders gathered in Doha for their annual summit, sparking a furious reaction from Damascus.

Tunisia announced on Wednesday it was setting up crisis cells to combat "terrorist activity," after the United States warned that al-Qaida was seeking to establish a base in the country.

"We have launched the creation of crisis cells to monitor terrorist activities on the border (with Libya and Algeria) and in the interior, faced with the rise of the radical Salafist movement and the existence of recruitment networks," Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou told parliament.

An Egyptian court on Wednesday overturned a decision by President Mohammed Morsi to sack prosecutor general Abdel Meguid Mahmoud and ordered his reinstatement, state media reported.

The ruling by the appeals court will once again put the presidency on a collision course with the judiciary, while any enforcement of its terms remains trapped in a legal labyrinth.

Saudi authorities on Wednesday beheaded a Yemeni man and then crucified his body after he was convicted of murdering a Pakistani national, the kingdom's interior ministry announced.

"The Yemeni citizen Mohammed Rashad Khairi Hussein killed a Pakistani, Pashteh Sayed Khan, after he committed sodomy with him," said a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has appealed to the leaders of a five-nation economic forum to intervene to stop the violence in Syria and encourage dialogue in his country's two-year conflict.

Assad said Syria is being subjected to "acts of terrorism backed by Arab, regional and Western nations" — a reference to the Western-backed opposition fighting his regime.

Israel's army early Wednesday arrested five members of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, including a member of parliament, a prisoners' support group said.

The five were arrested at dawn at their homes in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, the Ramallah-based Prisoners' Club told Agence France Presse.

A series of attacks near Baghdad and north of the capital killed four people on Wednesday, the latest in an apparent spike in violence just weeks ahead of Iraq's first elections in three years.

Separate bombings south of Baghdad -- one inside a restaurant and the other a car bombing near a police checkpoint -- killed two people and left 26 others wounded, officials said.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi expects parliamentary elections to be held in October, the official MENA news agency said Wednesday, after the vote was delayed by legal and political challenges.

Morsi, speaking to the Egyptian community in Doha where he attended an Arab summit, said he "expected parliamentary elections would be held in October and that parliament would be in session before the year's end," MENA said.

The White House said Tuesday that NATO would not provide Patriot missile batteries to protect rebel strongholds in Syria, following a request from opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib.

Khatib asked for an extension of the umbrella provided by Patriot positions on the Turkish border designed to intercept any missiles fired from the Syrian side, as he took his seat at the Arab League summit in Doha.