Two weeks after Egypt's uprising swept aside Hosni Mubarak, the presidents of Iran and Syria stood side by side in Damascus in a blunt message to the Arab Spring: The Syrian regime can count on its allies in Tehran.

Seven months later — and after at least 2,700 deaths in Syria — Iran is tweaking its big brother role for Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Iranian leaders are now urging him to consider talks with protesters or risk heading down a path with few escape routes.

Syrian security forces killed a civilian in the flashpoint central city of Homs on Friday, adding to six killed in the province the previous evening, two of them children, activists said.

The civilian was killed in the city's al-Khalidiya neighborhood, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Israeli air force launched a raid over the Gaza Strip after a rocket was fired from the Palestinian territory towards southern Israel Thursday, a military spokesman said.

The rocket fired from Gaza landed in an abandoned building in Israel's Shaar Hanegev area, the spokesman said.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said Thursday he would not step down if his former allies-turned-rivals are allowed to run in elections -- a potential setback to hopes for a peaceful transition.

The embattled leader told Time and The Washington Post that a power transfer deal crafted by his Gulf neighbors calls for "all the elements" causing tension in Yemen to be removed -- and warned of a civil war if that did not occur.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met Thursday at the White House with Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah for talks on the Arab Spring and the emirate's thorny ties with Iraq.

The pair discussed a range of issues, "including the changes underway in the region as a result of the Arab Spring, and the importance of resolving outstanding issues between Kuwait and Iraq," the White House said.

Libya's interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said Thursday that he will not be a part of the new government, the formation of which has been postponed until the end of the country's conflict.

Asked at a news conference in Tripoli about the timetable for the government's announcement, Jibril said: "I hope that soon we will free Sirte and Bani Walid to begin negotiations on the formation of the transitional government, of which I will not be a part."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday demanded that the Syrian government do everything possible to protect U.S. diplomats.

"We immediately raised this incident with the Syrian government," Clinton told reporters following an attack on the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford.

Moammar Gadhafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim was captured on Thursday outside of the former Libyan strongman's hometown of Sirte, field commanders from the new regime told Agence France Presse.

"Misrata fighters contacted us and gave us the information that Moussa Ibrahim has been captured," said Mustafa bin Dardef, of the National Transitional Council's Zintan Brigade.

Anti-regime activists inside Syria oppose the Syrian National Council, an opposition body formed in Turkey last month, because it favors foreign intervention, prominent activist Michel Kilo said on Thursday.

"The opposition within the national council are in favor of foreign intervention to resolve the crisis in Syria, while those at home are not," Kilo claimed in remarks to Agence France Presse at his home in Damascus.

The Palestinians have secured eight Security Council yes votes for their U.N. membership bid, just one short of the nine they need, the Palestinian foreign minister said on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters in Ramallah, Riyad al-Malki said he had received assurances from two additional nations -- Nigeria and Gabon -- that they would vote in favor of the Palestinian bid for full state membership at the U.N.