A leading Syrian human rights activist on Thursday urged the international community to cut diplomatic ties with Damascus and up pressure on Russia to stop blocking U.N. action against the regime there.

"So far 5,000 people have been killed in Syria, among them are 277 children, 159 women and a lot of people were killed under torture. All this is happening in cold blood and the international community is watching and doing nothing," Rami Abdul Rahman, founder of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday on the sidelines of a European Union conference in Warsaw.

Armed men fired on the cars of two Turks near the Syrian city of Idlib, slightly injuring one of them, Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

Mehmet Akinay and Nesim Zeytinci were driving to Saudi Arabia through Syria in cars with non-Turkish license plates when they came under fire from gunmen in civilian clothes 15 kilometers from Idlib, Anatolia said.

Canada on Thursday became the first Western nation to order an evacuation of its nationals from Syria, urging some 5,000 Canadians to leave the violence-wracked Middle East nation.

Foreign Minister John Baird urged Canadians in Syria to leave the country "by any available means and while options exist."

Israeli commentators said on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to crack down on a growing tide of settler violence appeared to be too little too late.

Police and army officers told the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper there was "only a small chance the latest steps will fundamentally change the state of law enforcement in the territories".

Tunisia's new President Moncef Marzouki has called on his compatriots for a six-month political and social truce to sort out the country's deep-rooted economic problems.

"I call on all Tunisians to give us a political and social truce, just for six months," Marzouki said on television late Wednesday, asking for "an end to the sit-ins and the strikes" in the north African country.

A group claiming to represent the majority of the opposition movements inside Syria declared Thursday the foundation of a "National Alliance" of revolutionary forces aiming to topple the regime.

"The regime has killed, maimed, arrested, tortured and displaced tens of thousands of people," Mohammed Bessam Imadi, a former Syrian ambassador to Sweden, told a press conference in Istanbul.

Iceland formally recognized the Palestinian state at a ceremony in Reykjavik, becoming one of the first Western European countries to do so

"This is the day I formally submit to you the declaration of Palestine independence in accordance with the will of the Icelandic parliament," Icelandic Foreign Minister Oessur Skarphedinsson said, addressing his Palestinian counterpart Riyad Maliki at a news conference.

Western Saharan rebels have detained people implicated in the October kidnapping of three Europeans in Algeria, the APS agency quoted rebel officials as saying on Thursday.

"They were acting on behalf of a criminal organization unknown until now," Khatri Eddouh, president of the Polisario parliament, was quoted as telling journalists late Wednesday.

Washington said Thursday it was "ludicrous" to accuse it of a role in the killing of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said U.S. Special Forces were involved.

"The assertion that U.S. special operations forces were involved in the killing of Colonel Gadhafi is ludicrous," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's spokesman, Captain John Kirby, told Agence France Presse.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe issued a new call for Syrian President Bashar Assad to quit on Thursday, accusing his regime of committing crimes against humanity on a daily basis.

"More than 5,000 killed, three million Syrians are affected by bloody repression, unspeakable abuse and daily crimes against humanity," Juppe told university students during a visit to Libya's capital.