Kuwaitis started casting votes in a snap poll to elect the fourth parliament in less than six years with unofficial polls showing the Islamist-led opposition in the lead.

The election was called following bitter political disputes and youth-led street protests, inspired by the Arab Spring, that eventually forced the resignation of the previous government and the dissolving of parliament.

A Canadian woman held in connection with an audacious bid by a son of ex-Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi to smuggle himself into Mexico has been formally charged, along with three alleged accomplices, an official said Wednesday.

Mexico's Assistant Attorney General Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas said authorities charged Cynthia Vanier, a Dane and two Mexicans on January 28 for attempted trafficking of undocumented people, organized crime and falsifying official documents.

Four rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck inside Israel on Wednesday, causing neither casualties nor damage, an Israeli police spokesman said.

The rocket fire came as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Israel and the Palestinian territories. He is scheduled to visit Gaza on Thursday.

At least 74 people were killed and hundreds injured when rival fans clashed Wednesday after a football match in Port Said, highlighting a security vacuum in post-revolution Egypt.

In one of the deadliest incidents in the sport's history, violence erupted as soon as the referee blew the final whistle in a match which saw home team al-Masri beat Cairo's al-Ahly 3-1.

Arab ministers will meet February 11 to review their suspended observer mission to Syria, postponing talks as a U.N. vote on the country's bloodshed is delayed, an Arab League official said on Wednesday.

The official said a meeting of foreign ministers, planned for February 5 in Doha, has been rescheduled for February 11 in Cairo where the League has its headquarters.

A gunbattle erupted Wednesday near the beach house of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son, Saadi, in central Tripoli, Agence France Presse correspondents reported.

Thick smoke billowed from near the house as rival militias, using heavy machineguns, clashed in the mostly business district not far from luxurious hotels like Corinthia Bab al-Africa and the yet-to-open J W Mariott.

Eleven Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped on Wednesday in Syria, in the latest such incident in the unrest-swept Arab state, the state news agency IRNA reported.

It said the latest case raised to 29 the number of Iranians abducted in Syria since December. The foreign ministry has urged Damascus "to use all means ... to release" Iranian nationals.

A top Bahraini interior ministry official said on Wednesday that some 100 jailed activists were still on a hunger strike after nearly three days, but denied claims that tear gas was used against inmates.

"Today, the number of prisoners on hunger strike has dropped to around 100. Yesterday there were 180," Major General Ibrahim al-Ghaith told Agence France Presse.

The Syrian crisis that began as a peaceful revolt is quickly turning into a full-blown insurgency pitting an increasingly militarized opposition against a powerful regime bent on repression, analysts say.

"It is the beginning of an all-out armed conflict," said Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Fresh violence killed at least 56 civilians, 15 soldiers and 14 rebels in Syria on Wednesday after Western powers and the Arab League demanded immediate U.N. action to stop the regime's "killing machine" but holdout Russia said any vote needed more time.

Wrangling at the United Nations came as fierce clashes raged across Syria's powder keg regions between President Bashar al-Assad's security forces and rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army.