Iran on Friday condemned the latest deadly bomb blasts to reel its ally Syria in a 14-month-old uprising and accused Western powers of orchestrating them.

"The terrorist acts were guided by (global) arrogance and the enemies of free nations," First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said, quoted by state news agency IRNA, using the Islamic republic's term for Western powers.

Bahrain police fired tear gas and birdshot during overnight clashes with protesters demanding the release of jailed opposition activists, wounding several demonstrators, witnesses said on Friday.

The clashes broke out in Shiite villages around the capital Manama when hundreds of demonstrators flooded the streets chanting anti-regime slogans and calling on the authorities to release the prisoners, the witnesses said.

The Syrian regime is trying to destroy the U.N.-brokered peace plan aimed at ending 14 months of conflict, opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun told reporters in Tokyo on Friday.

"The regime is now trying to kill this (Kofi) Annan plan, and by a new technique which is terrorism," Ghalioun said, a day after suicide bombers killed at least 55 people in horrific attacks in Damascus.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday condemned the deadliest bomb attacks of Syria's 14-month uprising, urging all sides to stick to an international peace plan after at least 55 people were killed.

The Syrian government and opposition traded the blame for Thursday's twin suicide bomb attacks in Damascus, which also left nearly 400 people wounded in horrific scenes of carnage.

Syria's U.N. envoy said Thursday that British, French and Belgian nationals were among foreign fighters killed in the country's mounting conflict and that there was al-Qaida involvement.

The ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, told the U.N. Security Council that 12 foreign fighters had been killed and 26 detained in recent clashes with Syrian forces.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday urged the United Nations to address the plight of some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners who are on a mass hunger strike in Israeli prisons that has left several detainees close to death.

Abbas raised the fate of the prisoners during discussions with the U.N.'s Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry, a statement from the U.N. official's office said.

Syria said Thursday's suicide attacks that killed at least 55 people and wounded hundreds was the work of "terrorists" armed and funded by foreign organizations and media.

The foreign ministry made the accusation in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hours after the deadliest bombing attacks of the country's 14-month uprising, which also wounded nearly 400 people in Damascus.

Israel's prison service has offered to ease restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in a bid to end a mass hunger strike that has left several detainees close to death, sources told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

Just under 1,600 Palestinian prisoners are currently refusing food in a wide-ranging protest against solitary confinement, detention without charge and restrictions on family visits, education and various privileges.

More than a million Libyans have registered to participate in the first national elections since Moammar Gadhafi’s regime was toppled, a spokesman for the high election commission said on Thursday.

"There are now 1,167,999 registered voters," Ezzedine Shaaban told Agence France Presse.

Algeria Thursday held its first polls since the Arab Spring amid deep voter disaffection, with the ageing ruling party confident of victory and its Islamist allies hoping for a strong showing.

As it does for every election, state television -- the country's only channel -- showed live footage of voters pouring into a polling station as soon as the doors opened and jostling to be the first to cast their ballot.