Libya's rebels claimed control of Brega on Monday, as most pro-Gadhafi troops retreated westward leaving around 150-200 loyalist fighters pinned down inside the oil town, a spokesman said.

"The bulk of (Moammar) Gadhafi's forces have retreated to Ras Lanuf," rebel spokesman Shamsiddine Abdulmolah told Agence France Presse, referring to another oil hub some 50 kilometers to the west.

The secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council on Monday delivered a protest note to Iran's ambassador to Saudi Arabia over an Iranian cleric's remarks on Bahrain, a GCC statement said.

Abdul Latif Zayani gave Ambassador Mohammed Rasuli a note of "official protest from the Gulf Cooperation Council, totally rejecting the provocative and false claims in the Friday sermon of ... Ayatollah Ahmed Janati against the kingdom of Bahrain," the statement said.

Qatar's ambassador to Damascus, Zayed al-Khayarine, has quit Syria and the embassy has suspended its work, an official from the Qatari delegation told Agence France Presse on Monday.

"The diplomats have left Syria and work has been suspended until further notice," the official said, declining to be identified.

Bahrain said Monday it "regrets" the withdrawal of the main Shiite opposition bloc from a national dialogue on reforms but insisted that the talks will go on with other groups.

"We regret the decision, by any participant, to withdraw from Bahrain's dialogue," Issa Abdel Rahman, the spokesman for the dialogue, said in a statement.

Iraqi MPs discussed plans on Monday to reduce the cabinet, following criticism that the months-old national unity government has been stuck in paralysis as it tries to rebuild the war-battered country.

Lawmakers symbolically voted to support the principle of slimming the government, following proposals by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to slash the size of his government by a third, with the premier openly acknowledging that the bloated cabinet has become a "burden."

A French yacht carrying pro-Palestinian activists which set sail from a Greek island at the weekend, is expected to reach the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, organizers said.

The Dignite (al-Karama) left the Greek island of Kastellorizo late on Saturday following a troubled stay in Greece after Athens imposed a ban on the departure of any ships planning to join an international aid flotilla heading for Gaza.

A clutch of European Union foreign ministers called for change in Syria on Monday, with Britain's chief diplomat telling President Bashar al-Assad that he must reform or stand down.

"The situation remains very serious and, if anything, is deteriorating," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Iran has taken "full control" of three camps of the Iranian Kurdish rebel PJAK movement inside neighboring Iraq, a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards told the official IRNA news agency on Monday.

"All the three camps on Iraqi soil that were backing the terrorist group have fallen under our control and we have full control of the area," said Colonel Delavar Ranjbarzadeh, who commands Revolutionary Guards in the border town of Sardasht. He added that operations launched on Saturday inside Iraq was still continuing in other areas.

Russia on Monday refused to recognize the rebel National Transitional Council as Libya's official authority but said it would view it as a formal negotiating partner.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week's recognition by Western and regional powers of the opposition government at the expense of Moammar Gadhafi's regime was tantamount to picking sides in a civil war.

Libya is responsible for a deadly 1989 attack on a French airliner, Libyan former foreign minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

"The Libyan security services blew up the plane. They believed that opposition leader Mohammed al-Megrief was on board, but after the plane was blown up, it was found that he was not on the plane," said Shalgam, who defected from Moammar Gadhafi's embattled regime earlier this year.