Fierce clashes broke out before dawn Tuesday in a major Palestinian refugee camp south of Syria's capital, pitting rebels against troops backed by pro-regime Palestinian fighters, activists and a watchdog said.

The fresh violence came after the feast of Eid al-Adha came to a close on Monday, with 560 people, including 235 civilians, reported killed during a failed ceasefire attempt over the four-day Muslim holiday.

Libya's defense minister said Monday that the army has no control over Bani Walid, one of the last bastions of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, and that armed groups there prevent families from returning home.

"The chief of staff has no control over the town and therefore armed men are able to prevent families from coming back," Osama al-Jueili told journalists in Tripoli, adding that "gunmen" hold a checkpoint leading to the town.

The Syrian regime may be their sworn enemy, but rebels fighting to bring down President Bashar Assad say they pay hard cash to government agents for guns and bullets.

For Syria's plethora of armed opposition groups, obtaining weapons is a constant struggle. Furious with the West for failing to provide heavy weaponry, they say they have little choice but to line Assad's coffers.

Tunisia's security forces union called on its members to wear red armbands for three days starting Monday, in protest against a suspected Islamist attack on a police officer.

Wissam Ben Slimane, the security chief of the Tunis suburb Manouba, told state television he was attacked by a hatchet-wielding assailant overnight Saturday to Sunday.

Explosions shook Syria's capital on Monday as warplanes launched their heaviest air raids yet and two car bombs struck, with the U.N.-Arab League peace envoy saying the conflict was going from bad to worse.

The air raid blasts, heard coming from several outlying districts, rattled windows in the city center and were among the most intense in Damascus since the beginning of Syria's 19-month conflict, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

The Kurdish rebel sits fiddling with his Kalashnikov looking bored when a comrade suddenly breaks into screams of "Allahu akbar" as a series of explosions reverberate from the front line.

"Take it easy, take it easy, he can't hear you," says the Kurd, sitting next to a pile of broken glass on the street, his jeans rolled up to reveal knock-off black plimsolls with the word "PRADA" written on the label.

Egypt's Coptic Christians voted on Monday for a new leader to succeed Pope Shenuda III, who died in March leaving behind a community anxious about its status under an Islamist-led government.

Nearly 2,500 eligible voters made up of Coptic public officials, MPs, journalists, local councillors were casting their ballots in Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral, seat of the Coptic papacy, to choose from among the five candidates.

Al-Qaida's front group in Iraq claimed responsibility on Monday for a series of shootings and bombings over the Eid al-Adha holiday that killed dozens of people nationwide.

The Islamic State of Iraq said the attacks over the four-day Muslim holiday from Friday were in response to the purported arrest of Sunni Arab women by Iraqi security forces in an effort to locate their wanted male relatives.

A car bomb attack killed at least 10 people in the predominantly Christian and Druze area of Jaramana near Damascus on Monday, Syrian state television said.

"A terrorist car bombing next to a bakery on Rawda Street killed at least 10 people, including women and children," the television said.

Syria's conflict is going from bad to worse, the U.N.-Arab League peace envoy said Monday after key talks in Moscow on finding a solution, expressing disappointment that his four-day truce plan had failed.

"I have said and it bears repeating again and again that the Syrian crisis is very very dangerous, the situation is bad and getting worse," envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.