Russia on Friday said a convoy carrying Moammar Gadhafi posed no danger to civilians when attacked by NATO jets and questioned other circumstances of the Libyan strongman's violent death.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added sternly that Western leaders were premature in celebrating the veteran dictator's death because its circumstances breached basic international law.

Thousands of Jordanian demonstrators on Friday urged prime minister-designate Awn Khasawneh to implement political change as the international judge prepares to announce his reform-mandated government.

"We are demonstrating today to emphasize public demands for reform and demand the new government introduce genuine reforms," Zaki Bani Rsheid, head of the opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF), told Agence France Presse.

Jordan's opposition Islamists urged Arab rulers to draw lessons from the death of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, saying his demise heralded a new era in the region.

"The death of Gadhafi was the logical end of any tyrant," Zaki Bani Rsheid, head of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) political bureau, told Agence France Presse.

A video that went viral on Friday on social networking websites showed a bloodied Moammar Gadhafi begging the new regime fighters for mercy after his capture.

Gadhafi was later declared dead by the National Transitional Council, Libya’s new rulers.

Syrian security forces killed 18 civilians on Friday, 15 of them in the flashpoint central city of Homs, where the death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi galvanized mass protests, rights activists said.

"Fifteen people were killed in Homs," which has been at the heart of military operations this week, Rami Abdul Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Agence France Presse.

Iran's intelligence minister on Friday dismissed as "stupid" a U.S. charge that Tehran planned to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Minister Heydar Moslehi, quoted by the state television website, pointed to the reasons he termed the alleged plot as "too mediocre to be believed."

The circumstances surrounding the death of Libya's ousted despot Moammar Gadhafi are unclear and an investigation is needed, the U.N. human rights chief said Friday.

"On the issue of Gadhafi's death yesterday, the circumstances are still unclear," Navi Pillay's spokesman Rupert Colville said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for forgiveness and reconciliation in Libya on Friday, adding that Moammar Gadhafi's death is not a cause for celebration despite his crimes.

Libya has found "its freedom and democratic hope. ... Now it is up to the Libyans to turn the page on the terrible years of Gadhafi and to build this future. The Libyans have a duty of forgiveness, reconciliation and unity," Sarkozy said on the sidelines of a development conference held as part France's chairmanship of the G20.

NATO ambassadors gather at 14:30 GMT on Friday to discuss an end to the alliance's six-month air campaign in Libya following the death of Moammar Gadhafi and the fall of his last bastions, diplomats said.

A NATO official said ambassadors from the 28-member alliance would meet in Brussels "with Libya on the agenda of talks".

Turkish jets kept up bombing raids on Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq overnight, as the rebels confirmed that some Turkish troops crossed into Iraq, officials and media reports said Friday.

Turkish war planes continued to take off from Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast, to strike at Kurdish rebels who killed 24 soldiers in a string of coordinated attacks on Wednesday, local security forces said.