Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal began talks in the Qatari capital Sunday on the formation of an interim Palestinian government and staging of elections, an official said.

The meeting was to explore the formation of "an interim government composed of independents to oversee the preparations for upcoming presidential and legislative elections," the Palestinian official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Protesters and riot police fought pitched battles in Cairo Sunday as clashes sparked by the perceived failure of Egypt's military rulers to prevent deadly football-linked violence raged into a fourth day.

Hundreds of riot police blocked roads leading to the Interior Ministry headquarters in the center of the capital, firing tear gas to keep dozens of rock-throwing protesters at bay.

Thousands of Bahrainis have begun a week-long rally in a Shiite village, an activist said Sunday, 10 days ahead of the first anniversary of the start of pro-democracy protest which was brutally crushed.

"The large number of people who participated yesterday (Saturday) wanted to deliver a message to the government that people are determined to keep up the demands that they made on February 14" last year, leading Shiite opposition activist Matar Matar told AFP.

Russia on Sunday blamed Western powers for the U.N. Security Council's failure to pass a resolution condemning the violence in Syria, saying they had failed to make an additional effort for a consensus.

"The authors of the draft Syria resolution, unfortunately, did not want to undertake an extra effort and come to a consensus," Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov wrote on Twitter after Russia and China's use of their veto sparked outrage. "The result is known," he added.

An official Syrian newspaper on Sunday hailed the Russian and Chinese double veto of a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on the regime's crackdown, calling it a catalyst for the speeding up of reform.

The daily government mouthpiece Tishreen was the only Syrian paper to comment on the veto, which drew swift condemnation from world powers.

Protesters attacked eight Syrian embassies around the world following reports of the bloodiest episode yet in Damascus' nearly yearlong crackdown on dissent. Mobs trashed diplomats' offices from London to Australia and set the embassy in Cairo on fire.

Activists say Syrian forces killed more than 200 people in the city of Homs before dawn Saturday, pounding restive neighborhoods with mortars and artillery. The government denies the reports.

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali called Sunday on all countries to cut off diplomatic relations with Syria over the violence there.

"We have to expel Syrian ambassadors from Arab and other countries," Jebali said during a panel discussion on the Middle East at a security conference in the southern German city of Munich.

The opposition Syrian National Council on Sunday slammed the Russian and Chinese veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria as giving the regime of President Bashar Assad a "license to kill."

The SNC said in a statement "Syrians and others around the world" had looked to the Security Council to issue a strongly worded resolution, "one that would clearly condemn the Syrian regime's crimes; the atrocity and impunity with which it kills civilians, including women and children; and the genocide it commits in exterminating entire families.

Saboteurs on Sunday blew up a pipeline that supplies gas to Israel, the 12th such attack in a year, security officials said.

Masked gunmen planted explosives under the pipeline in the Al-Massaeed area, close to the town of El-Arish in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, they said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy Saturday condemned China and Russia's veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution on the Syria crisis, saying it encouraged the Syrian regime crackdown.

"The Syrian tragedy must stop," said Sarkozy in a statement issued through his office.