The United Nations' humanitarian chief Valerie Amos entered the battered Baba Amr rebel district of Homs in central Syria on Wednesday along with a Syrian Red Crescent team, the ICRC said.

"Madame Amos entered with the team of volunteers from the Syrian Red Crescent, which stayed 45 minutes in the district," said a spokesman from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Vladimir Putin on Wednesday rejected the idea of Russia offering Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asylum as a way of helping put an end to nearly a year of bloodshed in its Soviet-era ally.

"We are not even discussing this question," news agencies quoted Putin as telling Kremlin reporters.

Amman is seeking ways of coaxing Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to return to talks, Jordan's top diplomat said on Wednesday after meeting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Negotiators from both sides held five rounds of "exploratory talks" in January under the sponsorship of Jordan and the Middle East peacemaking Quartet with the aim of finding a way back to direct negotiations which collapsed in 2010.

Two suicide car bombings on Wednesday killed at least seven people in Tal Afar, north of Baghdad, the Iraqi interior ministry said in a statement.

"According to initial reports, a terrorist attack of two car bombs aimed at shops in Tal Afar killed seven people and wounded 14 others," the ministry said.

Al-Qaida on Wednesday claimed responsibility for a string of attacks in Yemen, including an assault on soldiers that left scores dead in the southern province of Abyan and bombing of a military plane in Sanaa.

On March 4, "the mujahedeen carried out a series of operations ... against government forces deployed at the entrances of Zinjibar," capital of Abyan province, said the group's Yemeni branch.

The U.N. humanitarian chief started a mission to Syria on Wednesday to urge the regime to allow aid into battered protest cities, putting the focus on civilians in a conflict which has cost thousands of lives.

Valerie Amos flew in for a two-day visit, after an international outcry over President Bashar al-Assad's previous refusal to let her in, and is to followed by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday.

Air France on Wednesday said it had cancelled its Paris-Damascus service "until further notice" because of unrest linked to ongoing protests against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

"Because of the situation in Syria, Air France has decided to suspend its flights to Damascus until further notice," a spokesman said, after the airline had already cancelled two flights to Damascus earlier in the week.

Tanks and troop carriers were headed for Syria's embattled northwestern province of Idlib on Wednesday, said the Syrian National Council, the main opposition alliance.

"The SNC has noted 42 tanks and 131 troop carriers leaving Latakia in the direction of the town of Saraqeb," in Idlib province, "as well as military columns heading for the town of Idlib," the group said in a statement.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr has warned that arming rebel fighters in Syria would lead to a civil war, his ministry said on Wednesday.

Arming the ill-equipped rebels, mainly Syrian army defectors, would "lead to an escalation in the military conflict and spark a civil war in Syria", Amr said, according to a statement issued by his ministry.

Libyan leader Mustapha Abdel Jalil on Wednesday said he would defend national unity "with force" if necessary, after tribal leaders and a political faction declared autonomy for an eastern region.

"We are not prepared to divide Libya," Abdel Jalil said as he called on leaders in the eastern Cyrenaica region to engage in dialogue and warned them against remnants of the regime of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi in their ranks.