Violence has halted the evacuation of trapped civilians from Syria's Homs region, the Red Crescent said on Thursday, adding it was in negotiations for a deal that would allow them to safety.

"Negotiations are still underway with the parties concerned to evacuate civilians, in cooperation with the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross)," the Red Crescent's Khaled Erksoussi said.

Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon called Thursday for "massive intervention" by the international community in Syria to prevent the conflict there engulfing neighbors Lebanon and Iraq.

"The longer the wait, the more chaos and victims there will be," Ayalon told a small group of journalists in Paris ahead of talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Al-Qaida said on Thursday that it carried out a suicide bombing that killed the Yemeni commander of an all-out offensive that saw the recapture of territory it held in the south, a U.S. monitoring group said.

In a message posted on jihadist websites, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said the assassination of General Salem Ali Qoton on Monday was a "message" to the Yemeni military and its U.S. backers, SITE Intelligence said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad may be granted safe passage or even clemency by the United States and Britain if he agrees to join peace talks in Syria likely to be held in Geneva, reported the Guardian on Thursday.

It said that Britain and the U.S. are willing to make this offer as part of diplomatic pressure aimed at holding the conference in Geneva.

Syria risks descending into a full-blown conflict which would affect the entire region, Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday as he called on the international community to act.

"There should not be any effort spared... in getting Syria out of the current situation of violence and crisis... which risks becoming a generalized conflict which would have very negative consequences for the country and whole region," he said.

Jordan granted political asylum to a Syrian pilot on Thursday hours after he landed his jet at a military air base in the kingdom, in the first such air force defection in the 15-month revolt.

"The council of ministers has decided to grant the pilot, Colonel Hassan Merei al-Hamade, political asylum, on his request," Information Minister Samih Maaytah told Agence France Presse.

Violence has killed more than 15,000 people in Syria since a revolt erupted last year against the regime of President Bashar Assad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday.

At least 10,480 civilians, 3,715 soldiers and 830 army defectors have been killed in the crackdown and in clashes since March 2011, said the Britain-based group, which counts those who have taken up arms against the regime as civilians.

Bahraini police said on Thursday they had arrested five of a group of 20 people wanted over "terror attacks", including for alleged bombings and causing harm to civilians and security personnel.

The five were identified as Hasan al-Muallem, Ibrahim Ali, Ali Abbas al-Asfur, Ibrahim Mohammed al-Asfur and Hussein Zaed, in a statement to BNA state news agency by General Tareq Hasan, the head of General Security.

U.S. intelligence operatives in Turkey are vetting the flow of weapons to Syrian rebels to ensure they do not fall into the hands of Al-Qaida militants, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The Times cited unnamed U.S. officials and Arab intelligence officials as saying the weapons were being paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and funneled across the border by a shadowy opposition network.

Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza into Israel for a fourth consecutive day on Thursday, the army said, despite an announcement by Hamas it had agreed to a truce with the Jewish state.

Seven rockets slammed into southern Israel after midnight, causing no casualties and another one was intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system, a military spokesman said.