Qatar and Saudi Arabia are giving light arms to Syria's rebels but the fighters do not have the advanced weapons needed to confront Bashar al-Assad's regime, a spokeswoman for the opposition SNC said Monday.

"Rebels on the ground are searching desperately for arms wherever they can find them," a spokeswoman for the Syrian National Council, Bassma Kodmani, told France's Europe 1 radio.

Tehran is demanding the immediate release of a group of Iranian Red Crescent workers kidnapped in Libya, and says the Libyan government is responsible for their lives, the ISNA news agency reported on Thursday.

"Iran demands immediate action to free the seven members of the Iranian Red Crescent," deputy foreign affairs minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian was quoted as saying.

Seven Iranian Red Crescent workers who were abducted by an armed group in the Libyan city of Benghazi are being held and questioned by a local militia, a security official told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

"Members of the brigade holding the Iranians are questioning them to determine whether their activities and intentions aimed to spread the doctrine of Shiite Islam," the security official said on condition of anonymity.

A bomb blast shook the department of military intelligence in the eastern city of Benghazi early Wednesday, causing material damage to the building, Libyan security sources said.

"The department of military intelligence was bombed," a senior security officer told Agence France Presse, adding that the level of damage to the two-story building suggested it was hit by an improvised explosive device.

A bomb blast shook the department of military intelligence in the eastern city of Benghazi early Wednesday, causing material damage to the building, Libyan security sources said.

"The department of military intelligence was bombed," a senior security officer told Agence France Presse, adding that the level of damage to the two-storey building suggested it was hit by an improvised explosive device.

Slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam believes he should be tried before the International Criminal Court if justice is to be served, his lawyers said Tuesday.

"The only way for Libya and the Libyan people to have justice is for the ICC to try this case in a fair, impartial and independent manner," he was quoted as saying in a defense document submitted to the court.

Gunmen kidnapped on Tuesday a seven-member delegation from the Iranian Red Crescent visiting the eastern city of Benghazi, the Libyan Red Crescent reported.

"An armed group detained at 1:00 am a delegation of seven members of the Iranian Red Crescent after they left the headquarters of the Libyan Red Crescent in Benghazi," a statement said.

Libya's General National Congress, which will become the first elected body to rule the oil-rich nation after Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster, is due to take power early August, an official said Sunday.

"August 8 is expected to be the date on which power is transferred from the National Transitional Council to the General National Congress," said Othman Ben Sassi, a member of the outgoing NTC.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague met Libyan officials on Monday to discuss bilateral cooperation and the progress of a probe into the 1984 murder of a British policewoman.

"I believe there is a very strong prospect for relations between the United Kingdom and Libya," Hague told reporters in Tripoli in what marked his fourth visit to the North African nation.

The Libyan authorities should take immediate steps to assume custody of thousands of detainees still held by militias, a rights watchdog said on Saturday, after a deadline for a handover passed.

"Despite months of cajoling the militias, the transitional authorities missed the deadline and failed to gain control over approximately 5,000 people still held arbitrarily by armed groups, some subjected to severe torture," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.