The new international mediator for Syria, former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan, said Wednesday he hopes to be in Damascus soon with a "clear" message that the killing must end.

But he also demanded that the divided international community unite behind his mission as a special envoy for the United Nations and Arab League.

Underneath the plaza outside Israel's Habima national theater, Israel has put the finishing touches on a new gathering place that it hopes will never host a crowd: the country's most advanced public underground bomb shelter.

The shelter, four stories underground and with space for 1,600 people, is usually a parking lot. It is also part of Tel Aviv's elaborate civil defense infrastructure. City officials have been beefing up shelters and emergency services in recent months at a time of rising tensions with Iran and militant groups in the Gaza Strip.

Gulf foreign ministers will meet their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the Saudi capital next week to discuss developments in Syria, Kuwait's foreign minister said on Thursday.

"A meeting will be held with the Russian foreign minister and the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council on March 7 in Riyadh," Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah told Kuwaiti MPs.

The opposition Syrian National Council announced Wednesday setting up a military bureau to supervise the "armed resistance" against the regime, as Washington raised fears of al-Qaida taking advantage of arming the rebellion.

"The SNC has decided to set up a military bureau, acknowledging the importance of putting controls on the armed resistance in Syria and in support of the Free (Syrian) Army," the umbrella exile-alliance of several opposition groups said in a statement.

Egypt has lifted a travel ban on democracy activists, including Americans, on trial for receiving illicit foreign funding in a case that has tested relations with Washington, prosecution sources said on Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly welcomed the news but said Washington was still awaiting confirmation.

The United States on Wednesday summoned Syria's envoy in Washington to express "outrage" over his government's month-long bombardment of the flashpoint city of Homs.

During talks at the State Department with Syrian Charge d'Affaires Zuheir Jabbour, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman also urged Syria to live up to its November 2 commitment to the Arab League to end such violence.

A senior Iraqi security official on Wednesday hailed improving security ties with neighboring Saudi Arabia amid a tentative rapprochement between the two countries in recent weeks.

Deputy interior minister Adnan al-Assadi said Baghdad and Riyadh had already discussed working together on measures against terrorism, illegal narcotics, organized crime and cross-border smuggling, and would soon hold talks on prisoner exchanges.

Syria on Wednesday refused to let U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos enter the country to assess the growing crisis blamed on the government's deadly clampdown on protests, the U.N. official said.

The U.N. undersecretary general had been in the region waiting for a visa to go to Damascus. But President Bashar al-Assad's government did not respond to U.N. requests, diplomats said.

Egypt will vote on May 23 and 24 to elect its first president since a popular uprising overthrew Hosni Mubarak a year ago, the head of the elections committee said on Wednesday.

Farouq Sultan told journalists expatriates will be allowed to vote from May 11 to May 17 and that any run-off will be held on June 16 and 17.

A Syrian opposition leader voiced skepticism on Wednesday over plans for a new U.N. Security Council resolution demanding humanitarian access to protest cities where thousands have been killed.

"It is better to have a meeting between the interested countries and to have a political compromise," Haitham Manaa from the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC) told Agence France Presse on the sidelines of a meeting in Rome.