An international NGO on Saturday called on Israel to "immediately charge or release" a Palestinian prisoner who has been on hunger strike for the past 56 days.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Israel should "immediately end its unlawful administrative detention" of Khader Adnan, who has refused food since December 18, and "charge or release him."

Saadi Gadhafi, one of the sons of Libya's slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi, has said a nationwide rebellion is brewing against the country's new rulers as he vowed to return to his homeland.

"I will return to Libya at any time," Saadi Kadhafi told al-Arabiya television by telephone from neighboring Niger, where he took refuge after the fall of Tripoli which ended his father's 42-year iron-fisted rule of Libya.

Jihadists are moving from Iraq to Syria, as are weapons being sent to opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, Iraq's deputy interior minister told Agence France Presse on Saturday.

Assad has been carrying out a bloody crackdown on an uprising against his rule since March 2011, in which over 6,000 people have been killed.

"An armed terrorist group" gunned down a Syrian general in Damascus on Saturday, the official SANA news agency reported, saying he was in charge of a military hospital in the capital.

"An armed terrorist group this morning assassinated brigadier general and doctor, Issa al-Khawli, the director of Hamish hospital, outside his home in the district of Ruknaddin," in northwest Damascus, SANA said.

Arab recognition of the opposition Syrian National Council is imminent, SNC member Ahmed Ramadan said in Qatar on Saturday, ahead of key talks in the Egyptian capital on the crisis.

"We have confirmations of an Arab recognition (of the SNC) that will soon take place, though not necessarily on Sunday," when the Arab League holds a ministerial meeting on Syria in Cairo, Ahmed Ramadan told AFP.

Rights groups Saturday urged Malaysia not to deport a young Saudi journalist whose Twitter comments about the Prophet Mohammed triggered calls for execution in his home country.

Hamza Kashgari was arrested after arriving at Kuala Lumpur international airport on Thursday and a police spokesman said was still being quizzed.

Syrian armor moved on the protest center of Homs and a general was gunned down in Damascus on Saturday as the bloodshed showed no signs of abating.

The Syrian National Council (SNC) said Arab recognition of the opposition umbrella group was imminent, ahead of key talks in the Egyptian capital on the crisis.

The Iraqi branch of al-Qaida carried out two recent bombings in Damascus and was likely behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the Syrian city of Aleppo, McClatchy Newspapers reported.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the newspaper chain said the incidents appeared to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad's charges of Al-Qaida involvement in the uprising against his rule.

Bahraini forces have injured three people after firing tear gas at dozens of demonstrators ahead of the anniversary of Shiite-led protests crushed in March, an opposition activist said on Saturday.

"Three people were severely wounded by tear gas canisters" fired at protesters on Friday, said the source who requested anonymity.

Hamas "will never recognize Israel," its Gaza prime minister said Saturday in a speech in Iran that is likely to complicate Palestinian efforts to form a unity government in the teeth of opposition from the Jewish state.

"They want us to recognize the Israeli occupation and cease resistance but, as the representative of the Palestinan people and in the name of all the world's freedom seekers, I am announcing from Azadi Square in Tehran that we will never recognize Israel," Ismail Haniya said.