U.S. drones bombed suspected al-Qaida arms caches in a hilly region in Yemen's restive southern province of Abyan on Sunday, witnesses told Agence France Presse.

Six missiles targeted the suspected weapons hideouts in Jabal Khanfar, a hill overlooking the Abyan town of Jaar, which is controlled by al-Qaida militants, the witnesses said.

At least 34 people, almost half of them civilians, were killed across Syria on Sunday as peace envoy Kofi Annan held a second round of talks with President Bashar al Assad, a monitoring group said.

The casualties comprised 15 civilians, 14 regular army soldiers and five rebel fighters, with most of the casualties occurring in the provinces of Idlib and Damascus and in the city of Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Sunday slammed the Syrian regime, accusing it of committing "butchery against its people."

At least 8,500 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began in March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

International peace envoy Kofi Annan emerged optimistic on Sunday from a second round of talks with President Bashar al-Assad, but warned that ending the bloodshed in Syria would be "tough."

"It's going to be tough, it's going to be difficult, but we have to have hope. I am optimistic," Annan told reporters in Damascus after the meeting.

An Egyptian military tribunal has acquitted an army doctor of an accusation of public obscenity filed by a protester who claimed she was forced to undergo a virginity test while in detention.

Samira Ibrahim won a civilian court ruling last year that affirmed the tests were taking place at military jails and ordered they be halted.

The Obama administration and its allies are engaged in serious discussions about potential military involvement in Syria, The Washington Post quoted officials as saying.

“Possibilities include directly arming opposition forces, sending troops to guard a humanitarian corridor or “safe zone” for the rebels, or an air assault on Syrian air defenses,” according to the officials from the U.S. and other nations opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Iraqi teenagers widely perceived to be gay are being brutally killed in Baghdad with Shiite militias distributing lists of targets warning of further assaults, officials and human rights groups say.

At least 15 teenagers, described as "emos" for their tight-fitting black clothes and alternative hairstyles, have been stoned, beaten to death or shot dead in the past month, medics say.

Gunmen using silencers killed a town mayor's bodyguard and four of his women relatives in a house north of the Iraqi capital, security officials said on Sunday.

"Gunmen attacked the house of a bodyguard of the mayor of Tarmiyah," said police First Lieutenant Uday Sarhan. "They attacked the house at around 11:30 pm (2030 GMT) and killed five people."

Dozens of Syrian refugees have fled across the border into Turkey since Syrian troops stormed the rebel stronghold of Idlib near the border, a Turkish government official said Sunday.

At least 189 Syrians have crossed into Turkey since Saturday, the official told Agence France Presse, adding the figure tended to increase.

Israel will continue air strikes against Gaza "as long as necessary," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, giving no indication that a ground operation was likely for now.

"We extracted a high price from them and will continue to do so," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "We will act as long as necessary."