Algerian soldiers have killed two armed Islamists and recovered weapons and ammunition in an operation 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the capital, the defense ministry said Friday.

The deaths came amid an ongoing hunt for Islamists linked to an attack in the rugged Kabylie region last Saturday in which 11 soldiers were killed.

Syria's Aleppo has been hit by a power cut for seven consecutive days, a monitoring group said Friday, the day after some 50 civilians were killed in air raids there.

Regime-controlled areas of the city and countryside "have been deprived of electricity for seven days, after the (rebel) Islamic court ordered high-tension power lines be cut off as a way to put pressure on the regime," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Outlaws" threw petrol bombs at government buildings in the restive southern city of Maan Friday, where unrest this week has killed one man and wounded five policemen, a security source said.

The violence first erupted Sunday night when gunmen opened fire at police guarding a courthouse in Maan, seriously wounding one of them.

Russia on Friday said it had proof the Syrian government was not behind a new spate of alleged chemical attacks in the country, amid fresh international calls for a probe.

"Accusations against government forces continue to be fabricated about alleged cases of them using chemical substances," said a Russian foreign ministry statement.

Eight months after taking office, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has suffered his first major political defeat, with the public overwhelmingly brushing aside appeals to forgo direct government aid.

The 455,000-rial ($14) monthly handout scheme, initiated in December 2010 by Rouhani's predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is part of broader economic reforms aimed at overhauling the country's massive subsidy system.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that a push for unity with Hamas by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was "unhelpful" but vowed America would not give up trying to broker peace in the Middle East.

The proposed tie-up between Abbas's Fatah faction and the radical Islamist group earlier prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt peace talks on the grounds Hamas wanted to "liquidate" Israel.

Israel and the Palestinians were back to square one in the peace process on Friday after the Jewish state torpedoed U.S.-sponsored talks in response to a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set the tone, telling the BBC that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas could "have peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas (but) he can't have both".

Syria has nearly completed surrendering its chemical weapons stockpile, a joint task force in charge of the operation said Thursday, as U.N. Security Council members called for a fresh probe into alleged gas attacks.

"Today's operation brings the total of chemical material removed and destroyed to 92.5 percent," the combined Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-U.N. task team said in a statement.

Three opposition MPs on Thursday sought to question Kuwait's prime minister, accusing him of giving cash handouts to lawmakers and mismanagement in sovereign wealth fund investments.

The request, filed by Riyadh al-Adasani, Abdulkarim al-Kundari and Hussein al-Mutairi, could lead to a no-confidence vote that may force Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak al-Sabah's dismissal.

The European Union welcomed Thursday the unity accord between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas but said the priority remains peace talks with Israel.

"The EU's top priority is that the current talks continue beyond April 29," said a spokesman for EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton, referring to the deadline for a U.S.-led effort to broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal.