The United States on Tuesday lifted sanctions against former Syrian prime minister Riad Hijab, who defected earlier this month, as it urged more top officials to abandon the regime.

In a move aimed at convincing members of the inner circle of Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled regime that they have not been permanently blacklisted, the U.S. Treasury Department unfroze Hijab's assets.

An Egyptian court sentenced 14 Islamists to death on Tuesday for the 2011 murder of seven people at a bank and a police post in the Sinai Peninsula, scene of mounting violence near the border with Israel.

The court in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya convicted the 14 of carrying out the attacks in June and July last year on behalf of the hardline group Tawhid wal Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War).

Egypt's security forces exchanged fire on Tuesday with militants in the Sinai peninsula, sources said, as the military continued its campaign against Islamists in the lawless region.

A patrol comprising army soldiers and police came under attack from unidentified gunmen and fired back, the security sources said, adding that there were no casualties or arrests reported.

Two people were pulled out alive from the rubble on Tuesday three days after weekend quakes leveled villages in northwestern Iran, state media reported, and well after authorities halted rescue operations.

The two were plucked from the smashed remains of their home after being detected by search dogs, state television and the official IRNA news agency reported, citing emergency workers.

More than 23,000 people have been killed in violence in Syria since the outbreak of a revolt in March last year, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.

"As of August 13, 23,002 people were killed, including 16,142 civilians, 1,018 defectors and 5,842 soldiers," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse, adding that 2,409 people have been killed in the past 13 days alone.

The Turkish army on Tuesday staged a new military drill near its border with Syria, in the throes of an uprising that has led to deteriorating relations between the neighboring nations, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish tanks accompanied by advanced armored personnel carriers and tactical missile-launching platforms were deployed at the Oncupinar crossing in southern Kilis province for the drill, the report said.

Yemeni troops from the elite Republican Guard force, led by the son of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, attacked on Tuesday the headquarters of the defense ministry, witnesses said.

The forces laid siege to the ministry in Sanaa before attacking it with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades, witnesses told Agence France Presse.

Syria's former prime minister, who defected last week, said Tuesday that the regime was collapsing and now only controlled about a third of the conflict-wracked country.

"The Syrian regime only controls 30 percent of Syria's territory. It has collapsed militarily, economically and morally," Riad Hijab told a news conference in the Jordanian capital.

A Syria-based reporter for Iran's Arabic language television network al-Alam has been abducted by rebels in the central Syrian city of Homs, the channel said on its website on Tuesday.

The journalist, named as Ahmed Sattouf, was taken by "armed terrorist groups" as he returned to his home in Homs, al-Alam said, using the term the allied regimes in Iran and Syria use to designate Syria's rebels.

Some 10 people were arrested after illegally entering the Syrian embassy in Stockholm during a protest against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Stockholm police said on Tuesday.

"Around 10 people were arrested for illegal entry and causing material damage," police spokesman Sven-Erik Olsson told AFP.