Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Thursday said it may scrap an emergency law in place since 1963 and announced the release of all activists detained this month, following a week of deadly protests in the south.

"Under a directive by President Bashar al-Assad, all those detained in recent events have been freed," state television reported.

A French fighter jet destroyed a Gadhafi regime warplane on Thursday, apparently as it was landing in the Libyan city of Misrata, a U.S. official said.

If confirmed, the incident would be the first shoot-down of a Libyan fighter since Western powers launched missiles and air strikes Saturday under a U.N. resolution approving a "no-fly" zone aimed at shielding civilians from attacks by forces loyal to strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Thursday that Israel will not tolerate militant attacks, a day after a bombing in Jerusalem left one dead and as Gaza rockets pounded Israel.

"We have to respond," Barak said at a joint press conference with visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates shortly after two Grad rockets slammed into the southern port city of Ashdod.

The international coalition carried out an intensive air raid overnight on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's southern stronghold of Sebha, a local resident told Agence France Presse Thursday.

Sebha, about 750 kilometers south of Tripoli, is bastion of Gadhafi's Guededfa tribe and home to an important military base.

Some 20,000 people gathered Thursday in the Syrian city of Daraa for the burial of victims killed by police gunfire the day before, chanting support for a rising anti-regime movement there, rights activists said.

One activist in Daraa, contacted by telephone, said the mourners made their way from the Omari mosque, where protesters have been holed up for a week, to the burial grounds under pouring rain, chanting: "With our souls, with our blood, we are loyal to our martyrs."

Fresh clashes in southeast Yemen between the regular army and elite Republican Guard loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh left three wounded on Thursday, witnesses and medics said.

In what was the second such clash this week, medics said two members of the elite force and an army colonel were wounded as the two sides clashed in Mukalla at dawn.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Thursday that coalition airstrikes against Libya had been a "success" and would continue.

France's defense minister, meanwhile, said intercepted communications showed that some forces under Moammar Gadhafi are wavering in their support of the Libyan leader.

Blasts and anti-aircraft fire rattled Tripoli Thursday as allied air raids against Moammar Gadhafi's forces entered a sixth day and a British officer said Libya's air force was mostly obliterated.

The anti-aircraft gunfire began at around 0430 GMT and there were ensuing explosions, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

Dubai police have foiled a bid to smuggle 16,000 guns from Turkey to Yemen's northern province of Saada, the stronghold of Shiite rebels, the Gulf emirate's police chief said on Thursday.

Six Arab residents of the United Arab Emirates of which Dubai is a member have been arrested as "police foiled a major attempt to smuggle arms from Turkey to Yemen," Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan told a press conference.

One person was killed and more than 30 were wounded when a bomb ripped through a bus in Jerusalem on Wednesday, just hours after Palestinian factions vowed revenge for two deadly Israeli raids on Gaza.

The bombing came several hours after two Grad rockets fired by militants in Gaza had slammed into the southern city of Beersheva, prompting Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to warn that anyone who attacks the Jewish state would learn it has an "iron will" to defend itself.