The main opposition Syrian National Council, under pressure to unite and bring in all parties, has elected a new leadership with Islamists heavily represented, SNC officials said on Thursday.

They said a president of the opposition coalition would be chosen on Friday, after the 40-member general secretariat was elected overnight at a meeting in the Qatari capital.

An Armenian plane carrying humanitarian aid for Syria was forced to land in Turkey on Thursday for an inspection of its cargo, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The cargo plane landed at Erzurum airport in eastern Turkey where teams of police and troops with sniffer dogs began their searches, it said.

A drone strike near the Yemeni capital killed three suspected al-Qaida members including a militant wanted for a deadly attack on the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, security officials said on Thursday.

They said the drone strike, believed to have been carried out by the United States, targeted a car near the village of Beit al-Ahmar in the Sanhan region, 15 kilometers (nine miles) southeast of Sanaa.

A car bomb exploded in Libya's second city of Benghazi on Wednesday, wounding an officer who had served in the regime of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi, a local security official told Agence France Presse.

Hussam al-Raaid, a former officer of the toppled regime's reviled internal security services, was wounded when his booby-trapped vehicle exploded outside his house, the official said on condition of anonymity.

A Libyan military court on Wednesday ordered prosecutors to interrogate former transitional leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil over the murder of a general who had commanded rebel forces last year.

The court in the eastern city of Benghazi ordered that the ex-chairman of the National Transitional Council, a political body representing rebels in the 2011 conflict, be questioned over the killing of General Abdel Fatah Younes.

Turkey said Wednesday it is in talks with NATO over the possible deployment of Patriot missiles on its soil amid the escalating conflict in neighboring Syria, but the prime minister insisted that no request has yet been made.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters during a visit to Brussels that it was only "normal" to discuss any defense measures in the face of potential risk from Syria, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of Syria's anti-regime revolt in March 2011, with over 1,000 dead in the past week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

Civilians, at 26,596, represented the vast majority of those killed, said the Observatory, which included in that figure non-military people who have taken up arms against President Bashar Assad's regime.

Syria's foreign ministry warned Palestinians against becoming embroiled in the country's uprising on Wednesday, telling them to stay well clear of armed opposition groups, state television said.

"Syria will strongly oppose any attempt to bring the Palestinians into what is happening in Syria," a ministry source said, urging them to direct their efforts at the Palestinian cause, Syria TV reported.

Syria's main umbrella opposition group, under U.S. pressure to broaden its representation and urged by the Arab League to present a united front, began voting in a new leadership in Doha on Wednesday.

Some 400 members of the Syrian National Council were to choose from 29 lists of opposition groups ranging from liberals to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as ethnic minorities and tribes.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime will not stay in power for long, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said on Wednesday, urging the opposition meeting in Qatar to put aside their differences.

"It is important to unify the opposition's visions, especially because everyone knows that the regime in Syria will not remain for long and one day there will be a new situation in Syria," he told reporters in Cairo.