On Friday, Iran's 48 million voters are being called on to decide their next parliament in elections whose turnout will be weighed to give an idea of support for the Islamic republic's regime.

It will be the first nationwide poll since the 2009 disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which sparked months of opposition protests and a bloody crackdown by security forces.

Syrian forces on Wednesday killed 23 people across the country and launched a ground assault on a rebel-held district of Homs after shelling it for 26 straight days, as world pressure grew for humanitarian access to besieged protest cities.

A security source told Agence France Presse in Damascus that Baba Amr "is under control," after activists had earlier said that elite troops of the Fourth Armored Division had taken up position around the holdout neighborhood of Syria's third-largest city.

Israeli troops raided two Palestinian television stations in the West Bank city of Ramallah overnight, seizing computers and broadcasting equipment, employees told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

The two stations affected were Watan Television, a local private station, and Quds Educational Television, affiliated with the Palestinian al-Quds University.

Bombings in Iraq killed eight people on Wednesday as authorities released figures showing nearly 70,000 people died in violence from 2004 to 2011, markedly fewer than numbers from other sources.

The latest bloodshed comes a month before Baghdad hosts an Arab summit, the first such non-emergency Arab meeting to be held in the Iraqi capital in more than 30 years, and less than a week after a wave of attacks claimed by al-Qaida killed 42 people nationwide.

The United States is drawing up a new draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria demanding humanitarian access to protest cities where thousands have been killed, diplomats said Tuesday.

If put to a vote it would be the third time Western nations have tried to get a Security Council resolution on the 11 month old crisis.

Kuwait's public attorney has asked a special judicial tribunal to probe allegations the former premier transferred public funds into his overseas accounts, press reports said on Wednesday.

The action by Dherar al-Asousi came after he received a complaint from a Kuwaiti lawyer who claimed he had evidence to substantiate the allegations, the al-Watan newspaper reported.

The White House said Tuesday that al-Qaida's efforts to take advantage of violence in Syria mean it is no time to send arms to opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"Without getting into assessments of our intelligence capabilities, I would simply say that we are aware of the fact that al-Qaida and other extremists are seeking to take advantage of the situation created by Assad's brutal assault on the opposition," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

The Palestinian leadership on Tuesday called on the U.N. Security Council to visit the occupied territories to see the impact of Israel's settlement campaign.

The Palestinian U.N. envoy, Riyad Mansour, made the request as U.N. under secretary general for political affairs, B. Lynne Pascoe, told the Security Council that events in Gaza and the West Bank are "dangerous and ultimately unsustainable."

The Egyptian judges trying dozens of democracy activists, including Americans, in a case that has strained ties with Washington recused themselves from the trial Tuesday, judicial sources said.

In such instances, the trial, which opened on Sunday, is normally referred to the court of appeals, which appoints a new panel of judges.

Egypt's newly elected senate chose an Islamist as its speaker on Tuesday, extending the religious conservatives' power over the legislature tasked with appointing a panel to draft a new constitution.

Ahmed Fahmy of the dominant Islamist Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was chosen to lead the 270-seat senate after Islamists won most of the 180 elected seats in the chamber. The ruling military will appoint the remaining senators.