A car bomb near a market in a Shiite-majority area of Baghdad killed 12 people and wounded at least 20 on Monday, a police officer and a medical official said.

The bombing in the Shaab area of north Baghdad brings the two-day death toll from violence in Iraq to 63.

An opposition leader, rights activist and longtime dissident in Syria's rebel-held city of Raqa has been abducted, a watchdog said Monday.

"The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has learned of the abduction by an armed group of lawyer, human rights activist and head of Raqa city's (opposition) local council Abdallah al-Khalil," the Britain-based group said.

Armed men on Monday attacked Mellitah gas complex in western Libya, wounding a soldier and a leader of the brigade which guards the complex, the official Lana news agency reported.

"An armed group attacked at dawn the Mellitah gas complex wounding the commander of the brigade responsible for the security of the plant and a soldier," it quoted a military source as saying.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Monday he will overhaul Iraq's security strategy as a two-day wave of violence killed 72 people including 24 police, bringing the month's death toll from unrest to 349.

"We are about to make changes in the high and middle positions of those responsible for security, and the security strategy," Maliki said at a news conference in Baghdad.

Israel's center-right government will support U.S. efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians, despite hardline positions held by ministers and coalition parties, a prominent MP said on Monday.

"If (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu goes on the path that U.S. Secretary of State Kerry is encouraging... he will have the full support of... the majority of the parliament," Ofer Shelah, a member of the powerful Yesh Atid party told army radio.

Saudi authorities beheaded on Monday a Syrian man after convicting him of drug trafficking, the interior ministry said.

Mohammed Yousuf Ezzeddine was executed in the northern city of Qurayat, near the borders with Jordan, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

Branches of the divided Syrian opposition held talks in Madrid on Monday seeking to harmonize their approach to the country's bloody civil war, their Spanish government hosts said.

The talks included Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned last week as leader of the Syrian National Coalition, plus other members of the coalition and "various movements" of the opposition to Syria's President Bashar Assad, the Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement.

The emir of Qatar, a strong supporter of the Syrian rebels, on Monday slammed what he called inaction by the international community over the conflict there, lamenting the failure to reach a political solution.

"It is no longer acceptable that influential states in the international community do not act to end the horrific tragedy and escalating humanitarian catastrophe" in Syria, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani told the Doha Forum.

Israel announced on Monday it was calling off a United Nations investigative mission to the Old City in annexed east Jerusalem because of Palestinian efforts to politicize the visit.

"Israel has canceled the delegation," which was due to have arrived the same day, a foreign ministry official told Agence France Presse

A Bahraini court sentenced nine Shiites to jail terms ranging between 10 and 15 years on Monday after convicting them of forming a "terrorist" group, a judicial source said.

Cleric Ahmed al-Majed and a second defendant were jailed for 15 years, while a third defendant was sentenced to 10 years.