NATO launched fresh air raids on Tripoli Saturday as Moammar Gadhafi's government said it was ready to withdraw from Misrata and let tribes deal with rebels in the besieged city.

The strikes hit a patch of bare ground opposite Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya residence in central Tripoli and what looked like a bunker. Authorities who took foreign correspondents there said they were "a parking lot" and "sewers."

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon condemned the Syrian government for the killing of scores of demonstrators on Friday and renewed calls for a "transparent" independent investigation.

"The secretary-general condemns the ongoing violence against peaceful demonstrators in Syria, which again has killed and injured many today, and calls for it to stop immediately," said U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.

Insurgents bogged down in their bid to oust Moammar Gadhafi hailed Friday a U.S. decision to deploy armed drones over Libya, as Senator John McCain urged the world to recognize the rebels' council.

"We are so pleased," media liaison official for the rebels' Transitional National Council (TNC), Mustafa Gheriani, told Agence France Presse in Benghazi, their eastern stronghold.

More than 70 people were killed by security forces during massive demonstrations on Friday across Syria, in one of the bloodiest days since pro-democracy protests erupted in mid-March, according to activists and human rights groups.

"The Syrian security forces committed massacres in several towns and regions today, so far killing 72 people and wounding hundreds," said the London-based Syrian Human Rights Committee in a statement received by Agence France Presse.

Tribesmen and al-Qaida militants killed 22 people, all but two of them soldiers, and captured dozens of others in separate attacks over a 24-hour period, security and tribal sources said on Friday.

"Al-Qaida militants ambushed a military patrol near Safer (oil fields), in (the eastern province of) Marib, killing 11 soldiers," a security official in Sanaa said. The assailants used machine-guns in Friday's attack.

Egypt's state prosecutor has renewed the detention of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak for another 15 days amid a probe into a deadly crackdown on protesters and corruption, MENA news agency said Friday.

Mubarak, who was forced to resign in February after mass protests, was first remanded into preventive custody for 15 days on April 13 on suspicion of involvement in a deadly crackdown on protesters and corruption.

Jordan has detained 136 people on "terrorism" charges a week after scores were hurt when Islamist Salafist protesters clashed with police in the northern city of Zarqa, a police spokesman said on Friday.

"The involvement of 136 people brought before the prosecutor of the State Security Court for terrorism and unrest has been proven, and it was decided to detain them," spokesman Mohammad Khatib said, quoted by Petra news agency.

Syrian President Bashar Assad must "do more, or allow others to do more" if he is going to satisfy the reform demands of the Syrian people, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Thursday.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner was responding to questions about comments from former Syrian vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam, who told an Egyptian newspaper that Assad's crackdown on demonstrators will eventually lead to the Syrian leader's ouster.

Senior U.S. Senator John McCain paid a visit to the Libyan rebel headquarters in their eastern stronghold city of Benghazi on Friday, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

McCain was mobbed on arrival at the courthouse in the center of the city by a crowd of about 50 people, who chanted, "Libya free, Gadhafi go away -- thank you America, thank you Obama."

Libyan rebels Thursday overran a post on the Tunisian border, marking their first advance in weeks against Moammar Gadhafi's forces as NATO warned civilians to stand clear of its bombing blitz.

The capture of the Wazin border post was cheered by several hundred rebels who raised the flag of the Libyan monarchy after some 150 to 200 pro-Gadhafi soldiers abandoned their weapons and fled into Tunisia.