U.S. drone strikes killed eight Al-Qaida militants at a gathering of the jihadists in their southern Yemeni stronghold of Jaar, a local source said on Thursday.

"We heard three explosions rock the town at midnight (2100 GMT)," the source said, adding that a " U.S. drone" carried out the strikes on a residence where they had been meeting.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged Israel to try or release hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners after activists denounced his "silence" in a protest outside the U.N.'s West Bank offices.

Dozens of demonstrators calling for action to help the weakening prisoners stopped U.N. employees from entering their offices in Ramallah, waving banners reading: "UNjust" and "UNfair."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday urged Bahrain to take further steps to tackle human rights issues in talks with Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the pair discussed Manama's efforts to implement the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) into last year's pro-democracy protests.

Twin suicide bombings killed at least 55 people and wounded nearly 400 in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, authorities said, in the deadliest attacks of the country's 14-month uprising.

The government and the opposition traded blame, with Syria's foreign ministry, in a letter to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon hours after the attacks, saying they were the work of "terrorists" armed and funded by foreign organizations and media.

The opposition Syrian National Council has signed a partnership deal with Miami-based opponents of Cuba's communist regime, which both sides said was aimed at fighting dictatorship in their countries.

The agreement was signed on Tuesday at a Miami hotel, officials said, noting that it constituted the creation of a united front and an exchange of ideas to boost democracy and respect for individual freedoms in Syria and Cuba.

Bomb attacks like the one near a U.N. convoy in Syria on Wednesday cast doubt on the future of the ceasefire monitoring mission in the country, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said.

There was no immediate evidence that U.N. monitors in the convoy were the target of Wednesday's attack, Ban said through a spokesman. But he expressed deep concern at the growing use of roadside and other improvised bombs across Syria.

Radical cleric and terror suspect Abu Qatada lost his bid Wednesday for top European Court of Human Rights judges to hear his appeal against Britain's efforts to extradite him to Jordan.

The ruling means Britain can now press ahead with attempts to deport him to Jordan, where he was convicted in his absence in 1998 for involvement in terror attacks.

Several dozen Palestinians on Wednesday blocked staff from entering U.N. offices in Ramallah to demand that U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon take action over hunger striking prisoners.

The demonstrators, who blocked U.N. employees from entering the building, waved banners reading: "UNjust" and "UNfair."

Turkey will not extradite Iraq's Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who is being tried in absentia in Baghdad accused of running a death squad, a senior official was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

"We will not extradite someone whom we have supported since the very beginning," deputy prime minister Bekir Bozdag was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

The Israeli parliament approved by 71 votes to 23 an agreement between PM Netanyahu and the opposition Kadima party to form a national unity government

The Knesset on Wednesday approved by 71 votes to 23 an agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition Kadima party to form Israel's seventh national unity government.