Even if Iran obtains nuclear weapons it will not use them against Israel or other countries in the Middle East, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Haaretz newspaper on Thursday, Agence France Presse reported.

The views expressed in the interview with the Israeli daily appear to put the defense minister at odds with many in the Israeli military and political establishment, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A suicide attacker blew up a bomb-filled car at a police station south of Baghdad, killing 21 policemen on Thursday, as Iraqi forces braced for al-Qaida revenge attacks after Osama bin Laden's death.

The attack, which also wounded at least 75 policemen, was the worst in Iraq in more than a month, and pushed security chiefs to install new checkpoints, tighten access to key roads and restrict movement between provinces.

Seven people, including four policemen and a soldier, were killed in clashes between security forces and gunmen in Yemen's restive south on Wednesday, a security official and medics told Agence France Presse.

Clashes erupted when armed men fired "three mortar shells" at two police vehicles leaving the riot-police headquarters in Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province.

Libyan leader Moammer Gadhafi’s forces pounded the lifeline port of Misrata with deadly fire on Wednesday, as the International Criminal Court said his regime was still carrying out crimes against humanity, Agence France Presse reported.

A rebel spokesman said at least five people were killed as loyalists shelled Misrata port, from which an International Organization of Migration ship managed to evacuate about 800 people, including stranded migrants and wounded.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal buried the hatchet at a Cairo reconciliation ceremony on Wednesday that ends a nearly four-year feud but has angered Israel.

Palestinians gathered in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip to celebrate the long-awaited agreement to put an end to the rivalry between the administrations in the West Bank and Gaza, and restore the unity shattered by deadly infighting in June 2007.

France urged its citizens living in or visiting Syria to leave Wednesday and warned others to cancel any plans to visit during the current political crisis, the foreign ministry said.

"While foreign citizens are not so far directly threatened, the French authorities renew their advice to delay all plans to travel to Syria," the ministry said in advice to travelers on its website.

A Palestinian man convicted of collaboration with Israel was executed in Gaza on Wednesday on the orders of the interior ministry, the Hamas-affiliated Shahab news agency said.

The name of the Palestinian and the specific accusations against him were not detailed.

Yemeni tribesmen released Tuesday a Saudi diplomat kidnapped last month in the capital Sanaa over a trade dispute involving a Saudi businessman, one of the mediators for his release told Agence France Presse.

"Saeed al-Maliki was released by his abductor," Abd Rabbuh Naser Ahmed al-Salimi, a member of Beni Dhabian tribe, said Mohammed Naser al-Melqati.

The "brutality" of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's response to anti-government protesters will lead to the downfall of his regime, according to Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

"I think that Assad is approaching the point where he will lose his internal legitimacy," Barak told Israel's Channel 10 television on Monday night.

Anti-regime protesters called for permanent sit-ins across Syria from Tuesday as the authorities were reported to have arrested more than 1,000 people in their latest crackdown on demonstrations.

"We call on Syrians in all regions to gather from Tuesday evening in all public places to organize sit-ins which will continue day and night," said a Facebook post by the opposition Syrian Revolution 2011 website.