Sirte was rocked by deadly street fighting on Friday in what troops from the new regime said was the final assault on Moammar Gadhafi's besieged hometown, with orders that they take it "today."

Medics said at least four regime fighters had been killed and dozens more wounded from fighting on the west side of the city, and an Agence France Presse correspondent said ambulances continued to arrive in a steady stream at a nearby field hospital.

Syria will shortly present the United Nations with a list of more than 1,100 people it says have been killed by "terrorists" in ongoing unrest in the country, its deputy foreign minister said Friday.

"Syria is grappling with terrorist threats," Faysal Mekdad said in a speech to the 47-state U.N. Human Rights Council at it reviewed the situation in Syria.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian "peace warrior" Leymah Gbowee and Yemen's Arab Spring activist Tawakkul Karman on Friday won the Nobel Peace Prize, the jury said.

The three prizewinners share the 2011 award "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work," Norwegian Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland said in his announcement.

A 16-year-old Shiite protester has been shot dead by Bahraini security forces during a demonstration in western Manama, the al-Wefaq opposition group said on Friday.

Ahmed Jaber al-Qatan was hit Thursday night by bird shot used by anti-riot police in the Gulf kingdom ruled by the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty, where the Shiite majority led pro-democracy protests that were quashed in mid-March.

Israel limited access to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday for fear of violence on the Muslim weekly day of prayer, which leads directly into Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, police said.

The restrictions were part of a wider lockdown, under which the army closed all entry points from the West Bank on Thursday night.

Turkey has agreed to extend by one year its command of NATO peacekeepers in the Afghan capital of Kabul, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

Turkey had taken over the Kabul regional command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for one year on November 1, 2009 after an eight-month stint in 2007.

Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday barred nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu from emigrating on the grounds he still poses a threat to state security, Israeli media reported.

Vanunu, under orders to stay in Tel Aviv and not to speak to journalists, "has proved several times he cannot be trusted and does not respect the letter of the law," Supreme Court judges said in turning down his appeal.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Turkey on Friday to recognize the World War I-era massacres of Armenians as genocide within a "very brief" period before his term ends in May 2012.

"From 1915 to 2011, it seems to be enough (time) for reflection," Sarkozy told reporters in Yerevan on the second day of his visit to Armenia.

A U.S. diplomat has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon after allegedly beating his wife while they lived in Dakar, Senegal, the Justice Department said Thursday.

The indictment against Michael Makalou, 40, was handed down Wednesday by a grand jury in Virginia. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

North Korea must shut down its newest nuclear program before long-stalled six-nation disarmament talks can resume, Seoul's top presidential security aide said Friday.

Chun Yung-Woo, senior secretary for foreign affairs and national security, said other parties in the talks would not reward the North for abandoning its "illegal" nuclear activities.