Russia said Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was "making a lot of mistakes" despite repeated calls from Moscow for his troops and rebel forces to cease violence and seek dialogue.

"We believe that the Syrian leadership responded incorrectly to the very first manifestations of the peaceful protests," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Kommersant FM radio in a pre-recorded interview.

Germany will sell Israel a sixth nuclear capable Dolphin-class submarine, Germany's defense minister confirmed on Tuesday after talks in Berlin with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak.

"An additional submarine will be delivered to Israel," Thomas de Maiziere told a joint press conference with Barak, adding that Germany would subsidize the cost although he did not say by how much.

A deathly, blood-chilling silence hangs over the nearly deserted streets of Sermin, as a few remaining men await what they are convinced is an inevitable assault by Syrian government forces.

And this would not be the first for Sermin, just eight kilometers east of the rebel stronghold of Idlib that was overrun by loyalist troops last week, and not far from the Turkish border.

The U.N .rights office on Tuesday criticized Bahraini forces for their "disproportionate use of force" as they sought to quell protests, saying their use of tear gas may have led to over 30 deaths.

"We have been receiving worrying reports of the disproportionate use of force by Bahraini security forces, including the excessive use of teargas, the use of birdshot pellets and rubber bullets," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The leaders of Iran and the United States competed on Tuesday with sharply worded messages for the start of the Iranian new year that highlighted global tensions over Tehran's controversial nuclear program.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned in a speech broadcast live on state television: "We have said that we do not have atomic weapons and we will not build any.

Veteran Yemeni strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, who quit as president last month under a hard-won transfer of power deal, has threatened to pull his loyalists from a unity cabinet that is another key part of the agreement, a top official said Tuesday.

President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, elected as Saleh's successor last month in a vote in which his was the only name on the ballot paper, is scrambling to persuade his predecessor not to make good on the threat, the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

The Yemeni army shelled suspected hideouts of al-Qaida militants in the southern province of Abyan, killing five of them, a local official told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"Five al-Qaida fighters were killed and several others wounded in the late Monday bombardment of al-Quz," on the outskirts of the provincial capital Zinjibar, which the militants overran last May, the official said.

Turkey said Tuesday it was bringing forward by a day to April 1 a "Friends of Syria" conference in Istanbul, designed to pressure the Damascus regime into halting its crackdown on opponents.

"We have decided to bring the meeting forward for technical reasons," a Turkish diplomat said of the gathering originally set for April 2.

Syria's armed opposition is carrying out serious human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and execution of security force members and government supporters, a rights group said Tuesday.

"The Syrian government's brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The body of Coptic Pope Shenuda III left Cairo's Saint Mark's cathedral on Tuesday after a funeral service attended by thousands, and was headed to its final resting place in a 4th century monastery in the Egyptian desert.

Pallbearers struggled to get the white coffin out of the vast cathedral, pushing through a sea of mourners who threw rose petals and waved white lilies, as others pressed forward to try to touch the coffin, causing it to tilt several times.