Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday condemned the military coup that has ousted Egypt's Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, calling it a "U.S.-led conspiracy."

"We condemn the military coup against Egypt's first democratically elected and legitimate president," the Brotherhood's shura advisory council said in a statement on its website after what is said was an emergency meeting.

Britain said on Wednesday it wanted to see radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada on a plane "at the earliest opportunity", after Jordan said he would finally be deported this weekend.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said she could not comment directly on operational security matters, but said: "Our focus is on seeing Abu Qatada on a plane to Jordan at the earliest opportunity."

The Jordanian government said on Tuesday that it had blocked 254 unlicensed news websites, 16 of them in the previous two days, using powers under a 2012 law criticized as a threat to freedom of expression.

Fayez Shawabkeh, head of the Press and Publication Department said: "16 local news websites were blocked in the past two days after carefully examining their situation.

Turkey, Jordan and Iraq must fully reopen their border crossings to allow thousands of Syrians fleeing their country's war to seek refuge, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

"Iraqi, Jordanian, and Turkish border guards are pushing back tens of thousands of people trying to flee Syria," the international rights group said, adding that the lives of those trying to flee were in danger.

A Jordanian air force captain has allegedly "deserted" and joined Syria's jihadist Al-Nusra Front to fight against President Bashar Assad's forces, a member of his family and a Salafist leader said on Monday.

"Ahmad Atallah Shbeib al-Majali, born in 1984, took a leave from his job last Wednesday and traveled to Turkey on Friday and from there he went to Syria to join the rebels," the family member told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Syrian rebels advancing from the Jordanian border seized a strategic army position in the southern city of Daraa on Friday as deadly fighting raged in the surrounding province, a watchdog said.

"They seized two buildings in the provincial capital that regime forces were using to keep the whole city under surveillance," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Jordanians are suspicious about U.S. weapons and troops being deployed to the kingdom, even if Washington seeks to help its ally protect itself from a possible spillover of Syrian violence, experts say.

Worried about the security of Jordan, which is already struggling to cope with around 550,000 refugees from its war-torn northern neighbor, the United States has kept F-16 warplanes and Patriot missiles in the country since a joint military exercise ended on June 20.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry headed Thursday to Jerusalem in his latest bid to revive Middle East talks as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would insist on security in a peace deal.

In his fifth visit in as many months, Kerry will have dinner with Netanyahu and then drive back to Amman for lunch Friday with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, with the potential for further shuttling if he sees an opening.

Parliament called on Thursday for international efforts to help end a 57-day hunger strike by five Jordanian inmates in Israel who are protesting prison conditions.

"We hold Israel responsible for the safety and and life of the Jordanian prisoners holding an open-ended hunger strike," MPs said in a statement.

Ratings agency Moody's cuts its sovereign grade for Jordan by two notches Wednesday, saying government finances had weakened sharply in the past two years.

The rating fell to B1 from Ba2, in the middle of its category for "speculative" or so-called junk debt.