Algerian soldiers killed seven armed Islamists overnight in two separate operations in the restive Tizi Ouzou and Bouira provinces, east of Algiers, the defense ministry announced on Wednesday.

Four Islamists were killed during an ambush carried out in Aghrib, in the Tizi Ouzou region, the ministry said in a statement carried by the national APS news agency.

Prime Minister Ali Larayedh insisted on Wednesday that Tunisia's security situation was improving and that fugitive jihadist groups with links to al-Qaida would be defeated.

"The establishment of security in the country is progressing... But there are some small groups that continue to aggravate the situation," Larayedh told the national assembly.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday doggedly pursued his hopes of both ending the war in Syria and bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to negotiations on the third day of a whirlwind tour.

Fresh from a marathon day of diplomacy in Moscow at which he agreed with Russian leaders to organize a conference seeking to end the bloodshed in Syria, the new top U.S. diplomat met for talks with Israeli peace negotiators.

Israel's minister of religion will seek to amend the law in order to allow Jews to pray at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, a top ministry official said on Wednesday.

Speaking to a parliamentary committee, ministry director Elhanan Glat said Naftali Bennett, the minister responsible for the religion portfolio, was likely to seek government approval for such a change.

MPs in Jordan on Wednesday unanimously demanded the government expel Israeli Ambassador Daniel Nevo after detectives in Israel detained top Islamic cleric the mufti of Jerusalem, state media reported.

"The (150-member) lower house of parliament unanimously demanded the government ask the Israeli ambassador to leave Jordan, and recall the Jordanian ambassador in Israel," Walid Obeidat, the official Petra news agency said.

Suicide bombers killed three people in an attack on Kurdish security forces and a Kurdish political party office in north Iraq on Wednesday, and four people more died in other unrest, officials said.

One suicide bomber driving an explosives-rigged car targeted security forces from Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, known as peshmerga, near the north Iraq city of Kirkuk, killing one peshmerga member and wounding 12, police and a medical official said.

Jordan on Wednesday summoned Israeli Ambassador Daniel Nevo after MPs unanimously demanded the government expel him following Israel's detention of the mufti of Jerusalem, state media reported.

Interior Minister Hussein Majali, who is acting foreign minister, summoned Nevo, the official news agency Petra reported.

Syria's Internet blackout entered into its second consecutive day Wednesday, which the state news agency blamed on a fault in optical fibre cables.

Landline phone services between Syrian provinces have also been down since Tuesday, SANA said.

Al-Qaida-linked suspects on Wednesday shot dead three air force colonels from the strategic al-Anad air base in the southern province of Lahij, a military official told Agence France Presse.

"Gunmen shot dead three pilots with the rank of colonel north of Huta (the provincial capital) as they were heading towards al-Anad air base," said the official, adding that the killers were "suspected of belonging to al-Qaida."

Israeli police were questioning Jerusalem's most senior Muslim cleric on Wednesday for suspected involvement in a "disturbance" at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Holy City, a spokesman said.

Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein was taken from his home by detectives and was being questioned at a police station "on suspicion of involvement in a disturbance that took place yesterday (Tuesday) on Temple Mount," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.