Leaders of the exiled Syrian National Council met in Turkey on Saturday to pick a new leader after the resignation of Burhan Ghalioun last month to avert divisions in the opposition bloc.

The vote came as Western powers moved to slap sanctions on Damascus amid mounting anger over a massacre in a central village blamed on regime troops and fears of a full-fledged civil war in Syria.

New fighting broke out in southern Libya on Saturday between members of the Toubou minority and government forces, the two sides said, with unconfirmed reports that at least five people were killed.

Tribal chief Issa Abdelmajid said the Toubou quarter of the town of Kufra came under shelling at 3:00 am (0100 GMT) by the Libya Shield Brigade, former rebels under government control sent to quell previous ethnic fighting.

Bahraini police wounded several people on Saturday morning when they fired sound bombs, tear gas and bird shot to disperse dozens who protested across several Shiite areas, witnesses said.

"Down Hamad," chanted dozens of supporters of the youth group of the "Revolution of February 14," referring to Bahrain's Sunni monarch. "The people want to overthrow the regime."

Five bombs exploded at a northern Iraqi oil field on Saturday morning, damaging two pipelines without affecting the country's vital crude exports, officials said.

The pipelines transport oil from the Bai Hassan field in the disputed province of Kirkuk to the Ceyhan pipeline that exports crude via Turkey.

Army shelling and gunfire killed at least 70 civilians in protest towns on Saturday, including women and children, a watchdog said.

According to the Syrian Local Coordination Committee, 29 were killed in Homs, 26 in Daraa, 20 in Latakia and one person in Hassaka, Aleppo and Daraya in Reef Damascus.

The Syrian army killed at least 23 civilians in two protest cities on Saturday, a watchdog said, as an international outcry mounted over a massacre in a central village.

U.N. observers who visited the village of Al-Kubeir, near Hama, said they witnessed blood on the walls and "a strong stench of burnt flesh," prompting Western governments to launch a push for tough new sanctions against Damascus.

Amnesty International on Friday condemned the "alarming" increase in executions in Iraq, which has put at least 70 people to death this year, and urged Baghdad to stop using the death penalty.

"The killing of Abd Hmoud is part of an alarming escalation in executions in Iraq and we fear others may soon face the same fate," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director, said in a statement.

Tunisia's decision to extradite Libya's former prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi back to his home country is definitive, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"The decision to hand over Mr. Mahmoudi is irrevocable," he said, without providing a date for the extradition of the former premier, a stalwart of slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s fallen regime.

Britain, France and the United States will quickly draw up a U.N. Security Council resolution proposing sanctions against Syria over the worsening conflict, diplomats said Friday.

Vandals overnight slashed car tires and sprayed graffiti at a mixed Arab-Jewish community west of Jerusalem in an attack which bore the hallmarks of an act of settler revenge.

An Agence France Presse journalist said cars in the village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam or Oasis of Peace were sprayed with slogans including "Death to the Arabs" and "Revenge" in Hebrew.