Pro-regime demonstrators on Thursday tried to attack the U.S. ambassador to Syria, an opposition leader said, as Damascus accused Washington of inciting "armed groups" into violence against its army.

The angry mob of nearly 100 Syrians tried to storm an office in the capital where the American ambassador, Robert Ford, had just arrived to meet opposition figure Hassan Abdelazim, the latter said.

The public prosecutor in OPEC member Kuwait has expanded an unprecedented probe into the bank accounts of several MPs suspected of receiving illegal deposits, local media reported on Thursday.

Citing unnamed sources, al-Jarida daily said the bank accounts of four more MPs were referred to the public prosecution, raising the number of lawmakers under investigation to 14.

The U.N. Security Council concluded talks on Syria Wednesday without an agreement on a new resolution, after Russia slammed Europe's effort to threaten sanctions against Damascus.

The 15-member Council discussed rival draft resolutions on the Syria crisis drawn up by France, Britain, Germany and Portugal on one side and Russia on the other.

A Bahraini special court sentenced Thursday a protester to death and another to life in jail after convicting them of killing a policeman, BNA state news agency said.

The same court sentenced 20 Shiite medics to between five and 15 years in prison for their roles in a Shiite-led month-long protest which authorities quashed in mid-March.

World police body Interpol issued an arrest notice Thursday for fallen Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's son Saadi for alleged crimes during his time as head of the country's football federation.

The new Libyan authorities requested the notice against Saadi, believed to be in Niger, "for allegedly misappropriating properties through force and armed intimidation when he headed the Libyan Football Federation," Interpol said in a statement.

Saudi men were voting on Thursday in municipal elections, the last all-male affair in the Muslim kingdom after a royal decree this week gave women the right to cast ballots in four years.

Some 5,324 candidates are competing for 1,056 seats -- only the second elections in Saudi Arabian history -- to fill half the seats in the country's 285 councils. The other half are appointed by the government.

Turkey on Thursday slammed Israeli plans to expand a settlement in east Jerusalem and said the move further underlined the need for the world to back the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership.

"Israel's decision raises serious doubts about its sincerity and its true intentions," Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement. "It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and is unacceptable."

Fierce clashes erupted in the Yemeni capital on Thursday between troops loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh and forces led by defected General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, witnesses said.

The firefights broke out in the north of the city between forces from the elite Republican Guard, led by Saleh's son Ahmed, and soldiers from Ahmar's First Armored Division, which provides protection for anti-Saleh protesters.

Libya has issued a summons for Moammar Gadhafi's former prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi, who fled the country for neighboring Tunisia, the interim justice minister said Wednesday.

"The prosecutor general has issued a summons for former Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi," the minister, Mohammed al-Alagi, told a news conference in Tripoli.

The U.S. embassy in Riyadh warned American citizens on Wednesday of a plot by a "terrorist group" to kidnap Westerners in the Saudi capital.

In a statement on its website, the embassy advised "U.S. citizens in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that we have received information that a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia may be planning to abduct Westerners in Riyadh."