Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika clinched a fourth term on Friday, despite his poor health, winning a landslide victory in an election marred by low turnout and his rival alleging fraud.

The 77-year-old incumbent who voted from a wheelchair on Thursday scooped 81.53 percent of the votes, compared with his main rival, Ali Benflis, who received 12.18 percent, Interior Minister Tayeb Belaiz told a news conference.

Wealthy Gulf Arab states have reached a "vague" compromise to thaw tensions over the Muslim Brotherhood with Qatar which has yet to prove its good intentions, analysts say.

Thursday's deal between the six Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers did not, however, mention the return of Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini ambassadors withdrawn from Doha in an unprecedented move on March 5.

A landmine blast killed a soldier on Friday in western Tunisia's Mount Chaambi area, the defense ministry said, after warning of the growing threat from jihadists in the remote region.

"A landmine exploded inside the closed military zone at 11:45 am (1045 GMT). The driver of a military vehicle was killed," ministry spokesman Taoufik Rahmouni told Agence France Presse.

Syrian army forces advanced Friday around rebel-held areas of the Old City of Homs, as a car bomb hit a regime-controlled part of the city, killing 14 people.

Around 1,200 rebel fighters and nearly 200 civilians are believed to be inside the rebel-held parts of the Old City, under army siege for nearly two years.

Tunis said Friday that the kidnappers of a Tunisian diplomat in Tripoli and an embassy colleague are demanding the release of Libyans jailed in Tunisia on terrorism charges.

Al-Aroussi Kontassi, the diplomat, was abducted Thursday in the Libyan capital, a month after Tunisian embassy employee Mohamed ben Sheikh was seized in Tripoli.

Local Christian Arabs and pilgrims from around the world made their way down the cobbled Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem Friday, where Jesus is believed to have walked to his crucifixion.

Thousands of worshipers, some bearing wooden crosses, walked through the walled Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site where they believe Jesus was crucified and buried before rising from the dead three days later.

Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was expected to win a fourth term despite his poor health when official results are announced Friday after a vote marred by low turnout and allegations of "massive" fraud.

The results are to be unveiled in the afternoon by Interior Minister Tayib Belaiz, but Bouteflika's supporters were certain of victory and celebrated in the streets of the capital Algiers after polls closed Thursday.

A powerful rival organization has accused Al-Qaida leaders of betraying the jihadist cause, in the latest widening of divisions rooted in Syria's civil war.

"Al-Qaida today is no longer a base of jihad (holy war)," Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said in a statement posted on jihadist forums.

A British teenager was killed in a battle in Syria, his father said on Friday, as he revealed that two of his other sons have also gone to fight in the conflict.

Abdullah Deghayes, 18, whose uncle is a former detainee of the Guantanamo Bay camp, died earlier this month after leaving Britain in January.

Syrian refugees in Jordan say they are so miserable that they would rather face "inevitable death" in their war-torn country than live in conditions that have sparked riots.

With Syria's war now in its fourth year, many of the 100,000 refugees in the sprawling desert Zaatari camp in northern Jordan feel the world has forgotten their struggle to survive.