The head of Syria's main opposition coalition expressed reservations on Wednesday about the presence of staunch Damascus ally Iran in the regional contact group on the strife-torn country.

"We have informed the Qatari leadership of our reservations over the matter of having Iran join the quartet," Abdel Basset Sayda, chairman of the Syrian National Council, told AFP in Doha after meeting Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem.

Sunni Islam's highest authority on Wednesday condemned a French weekly's publication of cartoons of a naked Prophet Mohammed, with the region still reeling from an anti-Islam film that sparked deadly protests.

Al-Azhar expressed "its and all Muslims' utmost rejection of the insistence of a French publication in printing caricatures offensive to Islam and its Prophet, the prophet of humanity," Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb said in a statement.

A Turkish jet that crashed in June was downed after a Syrian missile exploded nearby in international airspace, the army said Wednesday, three months after an incident that heightened tensions between the two neighbors.

The probe by the army prosecutor into the downing of the two-seater F4 Phantom found that it crashed into the eastern Mediterranean after a Syrian missile exploded near its rearside, the army said in a statement.

Militants assaulted a police station north of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing one policeman, as four people including two soldiers were shot dead in other attacks, security and medical officials said.

Militants shelled the police station in Hibhib, the town where Al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006, before attacking the facility with light and medium weapons, a colonel in the Diyala Operations Command said.

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday denied allegations that the kingdom has barred citizens of war-hit Syria from performing the annual Muslim pilgrimage while local media said it has refused to increase hajj country quotas.

"The kingdom is currently working on finalizing all measures needed in coordination with the concerned authorities to enable Syrian pilgrims to perform" the pilgrimage, hajj ministry undersecretary Hatem Qadi said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has formally protested a decision by Egypt's prime minister to receive Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, a Palestinian official said on Wednesday,.

"The Palestinian leadership and president Abbas are conducting contacts with the Egyptian leadership over the meeting between Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil and Hamas leader Ismail Haniya," Saleh Raafat told the official Voice of Palestine radio station.

Three civilians were wounded by stray bullets fired from the Syrian border post of Tall al-Abyad where rebels have been clashing with regime forces, local media reported Wednesday.

A woman, one of the three wounded, was in critical condition, the private NTV television said quoting Emre Akgun, mayor of Akcakale district in the southeastern Sanliurfa province.

Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani national on Wednesday in the holy city of Medina after convicting him of drug smuggling, the interior ministry said.

Bashir Khamis Ahmad was found guilty of trying to smuggle large quantities of heroin into the kingdom, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Amnesty accused Syrian forces Wednesday of waging "relentless, indiscriminate" attacks against its people as a Syrian army defector warned the regime would use chemical weapons as a last resort.

The London-based rights group, which accompanied its report with video footage, said "civilians, many of them children, are the main victims of a campaign of relentless and indiscriminate attacks by the Syrian army."

The Syrian army and rebel forces clashed on Tuesday in the north of the country Tuesday for control of the Tall al-Abyad border post with Turkey, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Heavy machine gun fire and exploding shells could be heard from the Turkish side of the border near the town of Akcakale, where town hall officials asked residents by loud speakers to stay away from the border.