The United Nations is strengthening its force monitoring a ceasefire between Syria and Israel because of the growing threat from the Syria conflict, a top U.N. official said Friday.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said extra armored cars would be sent to the force in the strategic Golan Heights where tensions have escalated in recent months as the civil war spreads.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki has denounced arms trafficking in North Africa since the fall of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, a particular source of concern given the current strife in Mali.

The Gadhafi "regime accumulated weapons, and now some are in the hands not only of Islamists from Libya, but also from Algeria and Tunisia," Marzouki said in an interview with The World Today, edited by London-based think tank Chatham House.

The world chemical weapons watchdog has asked Syria to sign up to a convention banning their use, expressing "serious concerns" that for the first time in the agreement's history they might be used.

The announcement by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) came amid speculation that Syria is considering using chemical weapons in its war with rebel forces.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay on Friday criticized Egypt's draft constitution and expressed sympathy for those protesting the way it had been drawn up.

"I believe people are right to be very concerned," Pillay said Friday, pointing to "the way the process has been short-circuited," as well as "some of the elements included in, or missing from, the draft text."

A stray bullet fired from inside Syria wounded a Jordanian soldier on the border on Friday, prompting the kingdom's army to respond to the source of fire, an armed forces spokesman said.

"The border area in Tel Shehab has in the past few hours witnessed heavy fighting between the Syrian (regime) army and the Free Syrian Army," he said in a statement carried by the state-run Petra news agency.

German federal prosecutors said Friday they had brought charges against a German-Moroccan national on suspicion of spying for Rabat against opposition members.

The federal prosecutor's office said the 59-year-old suspect identified only as Bagdad A. was believed to have worked as an agent for the Moroccan secret services in Germany from May 2007 to February this year.

Thousands of Shiite demonstrators in a village near the Bahraini capital on Friday demanded the premier's ouster in the first officially sanctioned protest since a ban at the end of October, witnesses said.

"Get out, Khalifa!" they chanted, referring to Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, an uncle of King Hamad, who was held the premiership of the Sunni-ruled regime in the Gulf kingdom since 1974.

The Dutch cabinet on Friday gave the go-ahead to sending NATO Patriot missiles to Turkey to defend its border against Syria, along with a maximum 360 soldiers to operate them.

"The cabinet has decided shortly to send two Dutch Patriot batteries to contribute to the protection of our NATO ally Turkey," a government statement said.

The Israeli army committed a clear violation of the laws of war when it killed 12 Palestinians, including women and children, in an air strike on a Gaza home last month, Human Rights Watch charged on Friday.

The raid, carried out during Israel's eight-day Operation Pillar of Defense, was on the home of a family whose father, Mohammed Jamal al-Dallu, 29, the Israelis described as a "known terrorist".

Yemeni guards foiled an attempted prison break by 25 al-Qaida convicts on Friday, some of them some considered as high risk, a security official said.

"The guards from Aden central prison foiled an escape attempt with the discovery of an eight meter (yard) long tunnel dug by the 25 detainees," the official told AFP.