A Bahraini Shiite teenage protester was fatally wounded on Wednesday when he was struck in the face by a tear gas canister fired by security forces, the opposition group Al-Wefaq said.

Jawad Ahmed al-Sheikh, 14, was hit in the Shiite village of Sitra during a small protest after Eid al-Fitr prayers, the Gulf kingdom's main Shiite opposition group said on its Facebook page.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Wednesday that Iran's alleged attempts to build long-range missiles and nuclear weapons could lead unnamed countries to launch a pre-emptive attack.

"Its military nuclear and ballistic ambitions constitute a growing threat that may lead to a preventive attack against Iranian sites that would provoke a major crisis that France wants to avoid at all costs," he said.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday warned against the United States taking "control" of the uprisings that have swept the Arab world, state television reported.

"The events currently taking place in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and elsewhere are key (events) for Muslim people," the television's website quoted Khamenei as saying.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's office defended on Wednesday a Libyan rebel commander who once reportedly led a jihadi group with ties to al-Qaida, insisting Libya's revolution is not led by Islamists.

A senior official in the Elysee told Agence France Presse that Sarkozy's senior own military aide had met Adbul Hakim Belhadj, the rebel commander who led the assault on Moammar Gadhafi's bunker complex, and had no concerns about his affiliations.

Ailing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused his opponents of being corrupt and arms dealers who are exploiting youthful protesters demanding his ouster, in a televised address.

"Those who went to the University Square to support the youth revolution that demands the ouster of the regime ... have fed on corruption, and are dealers of arms and land," Saleh said in the address aired late Tuesday on state television as he received well-wishers at his residence in Riyadh.

Syrian security forces searching for anti-government protesters raided houses in central Syria and made arrests, activists and residents said Wednesday.

The troops backed by tanks and military vehicles entered districts in Homs and Hama as part of efforts to crush five months of street protests against President Bashar Assad.

Iran believes Saudi Arabia's security is linked to its own security, an Iranian foreign ministry official said Wednesday, reacting to a Saudi allegation that Tehran was "targeting" the kingdom.

"Iran has always wanted the stability, peace and progress of Saudi Arabia," the Fars news agency quoted the unidentified official as saying.

The European Union is expected to lift sanctions against Libya's ports and 22 economic entities including a clutch of oil companies by Friday, diplomats told Agence France Presse.

The EU reached an agreement in principle on Wednesday to remove the six port authorities from its sanctions list as well as 22 other entities, the diplomats said. Three or four oil companies will be de-listed, they said.

The envoy of President Dmitry Medvedev for Africa will attend this week's conference for "Friends of Libya" in Paris, reports said Wednesday, in the first indication Russia will be represented.

"Mikhail Margelov is going to Paris for the meeting after receiving an invitation," a source in the Russian foreign ministry told Interfax.

Libya's rebels said Wednesday Moammar Gadhafi is almost certainly in Libya and that they have a "right to kill" him, while giving the fugitive strongman's remaining troops until Saturday to surrender.

"The information I have is this: it is 80 percent certain that Gadhafi is still in Libya," Omar Hariri, head of military affairs, told Agence France Presse in Tripoli.