Envoys from the Middle East Quartet met in Brussels on Friday amid calls from the Palestinians to step up action to halt continuing Israeli settlement activity.

Officials from the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia gathered "to consult as they routinely do over the phone as well", said a spokesman for EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton.

Russia on Friday denied holding discussions with other nations on a political transformation in Syria that would include the departure of President Bashar Assad.

"I read somewhere today that supposedly, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said something along the lines of the United States and Russia discussing a political transformation in Syria after the departure of Bashar Assad," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters.

Yemeni forces killed 15 al-Qaida fighters in a clash at a control station in Shabwa province on the country's only gas export pipeline, a military official and a witness said on Friday.

The clash took place during Thursday night when the militants attacked Station Nine on the pipeline in the eastern province, where the jihadist network remains active, the military official said.

Egypt's transition to democracy was thrown into further disarray on Friday after its top court ordered parliament dissolved and allowed a disputed candidate to remain in a divisive presidential runoff.

Activists and political figures have described the rulings as the final phase of a military coup that takes the transition back to square one.

Yemeni troops took control of the city of Shuqra on Friday after al-Qaida militants pulled out, the third jihadist bastion in the south to fall in the space of a week, a military official said.

"The army has taken control of Shuqra," said a military official, adding that "troops have taken positions in the center" of the coastal city while militants were seen fleeing.

Syrian authorities have uncovered an al-Qaida plot to bomb Damascus mosques around the main weekly prayers, state media reported on Friday.

A suspect detained on Thursday confessed that he had been planning a suicide bombing during Friday prayers at the al-Rifai Mosque in the heart of the capital, the official SANA news agency reported.

Russia said Friday it is not making any new deliveries of attack helicopters to Syria and has only carried out repairs of helicopters sent there many years ago.

"There are no new supplies of Russian-made attack helicopters to Syria," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that "planned repairs were carried out earlier on helicopters supplied to Syria many years ago."

Russia on Friday denied discussing Syrian President Bashar Assad's departure with Western nations and warned it may skip a planned conference on the crisis if Iran is not invited as well.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's comments seemed aimed at quashing reports from several major capitals about a discernible shift in Russia's approach to its Soviet-era ally that acknowledged the nearing end of Assad's regime.

Nine bodies, some of them mutilated, were found in a town near Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.

The Britain-based watchdog said it was unclear who carried out the killings but opposition groups blamed pro-government militia and demanded international action to prevent such "massacres."

The United States on Thursday acknowledged providing communications equipment and other forms of assistance to members of the "peaceful opposition" in Syria.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the aid is part of "non-lethal" assistance to Syrians living under President Bashar Assad's regime, and part of a global effort to support Internet freedom.