Army defectors killed at least eight Syrian troops Wednesday in an act of revenge after security forces shot dead five civilians, activists said, in the second such insurgent attack in as many days, as the Local Coordination Committees said regime troops killed 26 civilians on Wednesday.

The LCC, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces shot dead nine people in Homs, eight in Hama, three in Idlib, two in Damascus, two in Daraa, one in al-Qamishli and one in the Damascus suburb of al-Zabadani.

Multiple bomb attacks set oil pipelines ablaze in southern Iraq but exports were not affected, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said on Wednesday,.

"Around 9.00 pm (18:00 GMT Tuesday), several bombs damaged pipelines transporting oil from the Rumaila-south oil field to the Zubair-1 storage facility," Jihad told Agence France Presse, referring to sites in south Iraq.

Islamists who swept to victory in the first stage of Egypt's parliamentary elections were looking to extend their winning streak in a second round of voting on Wednesday.

Some 18.8 million Egyptians are eligible to cast their ballots in this round of the first legislative polls since a popular uprising ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rule in February.

Israel on Wednesday reopened a controversial wooden access ramp to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound, just over 48 hours after it was closed on safety grounds in a move which had sparked Muslim anger.

"It was opened this morning," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse. "It has been opened as normal for visitors, both Christian and Jewish."

Unknown attackers on Wednesday tried to set fire to a disused mosque in Jerusalem and scrawled anti-Arab slogans on the walls in an apparent "price tag" vengeance attack, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Slogans insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Arabs along with graffiti reading "price tag" were spray-painted on the exterior walls of the building in central Jerusalem.

Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on Saturday to respond to Syria's proposal to admit observers in exchange for an end to regional sanctions, the Arab League said.

Mohammed Zaidi, an adviser to Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi, said a ministerial task force on Syria would hold a preparatory meeting at the 22-member bloc's headquarters on Saturday, ahead of the emergency session.

The United States on Tuesday urged Russia to back U.N. Security Council action on Syria, after U.N. officials said the death toll in the months-long Syrian protests had exceeded 5,000.

"Frankly we think that it is past time for the U.N. Security Council to speak up," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters, denouncing Security Council silence on the Syrian regime as "unconscionable."

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz made a minor reshuffle in the cabinet of the oil-rich kingdom on Tuesday, the first since 2009, state media reported.

The main ministries of defense, interior and foreign affairs, held by top members of the royal family, remain unchanged, as does the strategic energy ministry.

Syrian security forces killed a Saudi-Turkish citizen during a crackdown on an anti-regime protest in northwest Syria Tuesday, local Syrian opposition sources said.

The dead man, Mohammed Munir Dolar, was traveling in his vehicle in Kafr Yahmul, a town of Idlib province close to Turkey, when he was shot by security forces, who opened fire on protesters at around 1100 GMT, the sources told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Iran's parliament on Tuesday passed a bill for a free trade agreement with Syria in a show of support for President Bashar al-Assad's regime beset by protests and international pressure.

The bill provides for free trade between Iran and Syria within the next five years, according to Iranian state television.