President Vladimir Putin met European Union leaders Monday for summit talks where the EU is expected to put pressure on Russia to harden its position on the Syria and Iran crises.

Putin on Sunday evening met EU President Herman Van Rompuy and the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, for an informal dinner in the northwestern city of Saint Petersburg.

Clashes erupted between regime forces and rebels in Syria's Idlib province overnight, killing two opposition fighters, as explosions were reported in Damascus province, a watchdog said on Monday.

Two rebels were killed as they clashed with regime forces in the town of Kafr Nabal in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Israeli military carried out air strikes on Gaza overnight, injuring one Palestinian, after a rocket was fired at southern Israel, the army and Palestinian medical sources said on Monday.

"Overnight, IAF (Israel Air Force) aircraft targeted a weapons manufacturing facility and a terror tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip. Direct hits were identified," it said.

Egypt's ex-strongman Hosni Mubarak was issued regulation blue prison uniform on Sunday a day after being sentenced to life and taken to a jail that once housed his opponents, official media reported.

The state news agency MENA reported that guards in the Cairo Tora prison took his official jail photograph and supplied him with his prisoner number.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Russia Sunday to get behind a political transition in Syria, saying President Bashar Assad's departure was not a precondition but should be "an outcome".

Clinton spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by telephone at the weekend to say that Washington and Moscow needed to work together on a plan that would halt the violence and bring about political change in the country.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will visit Syria's neighbors this week in a bid to help stop the bloody strife threatening regional stability, a spokeswoman said Sunday.

Westerwelle will leave Monday on a tour that will take in Turkey and Lebanon as well as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the foreign ministry spokeswoman told Agence France Presse, without giving a detailed itinerary.

Egypt's state prosecutor will appeal verdicts by a court that sentenced Hosni Mubarak and his interior minister to life but acquitted his sons and police commanders, the prosecutor's office said on Sunday.

"The state prosecutor has ordered the start of the appeals procedure," a source in his office said, of Saturday's verdicts which sparked protests in several cities across Egypt.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called on Sunday for broad international talks on the rising Syrian crisis, urging Security Council members to consider Arab League demands for stronger U.N. action in the strife-torn country.

"Our priority at this time is to help the Syrian people...I want to welcome a wider international discussion on the future course of actions," Ban told reporters after a meeting with Organization of Islamic Conference chief, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal accused Syria's President Bashar Assad of "maneuvering" to gain time, at a joint news conference Sunday with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

"Every initiative has been accepted by the Syrian regime and was not implemented. This is a way used by the regime to gain time," Prince Saud told reporters in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

Clashes between the army and Al-Qaida militants over the control of Yemen's southern province of Abyan have killed six jihadists and a soldier, local and military sources said on Sunday.

"Four Al-Qaida militants were killed late on Saturday when the army fired artillery rounds south of Jaar," a major Al-Qaida stronghold in Abyan which the Yemeni troops have been trying to retake since they launched an all-out offensive against the militants on May 12, a local source said.