Iraq's parliament on Thursday voted to extend by three months the terms of nine members of the electoral commission, including its chief and a colleague detained last week on suspicion of corruption.

"The majority of the 197 MPs present voted to extend the mandate of the nine leaders of the IHEC in order to able to choose their replacements," Shiite MP Aziz al-Okaili told Agence France Presse, referring to the Independent High Electoral Commission.

The CIA is seeking permission to launch more airborne drone strikes in Yemen, even when there is a risk the victims might not always be terrorists, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The targets would be chosen based on intelligence reports indicating suspicious behavior, such as images of militants unloading explosives or gathering at al-Qaida compounds.

Violence marred Bahrain's controversial Grand Prix race as a firebomb exploded near Force India team members and protesters clashed with police in the lead-up to the Formula One practice runs set to begin on Friday.

The incident prompted F1 officials to reassure participants that despite the violence, Bahrain was safe.

Egyptian Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa's visit to Jerusalem caused a stir on Thursday in his own country, where normalization of ties with Israel remains a highly sensitive issue.

The powerful Muslim Brotherhood called the trip a "catastrophe" that undermined Palestinian aspirations, and Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest authority, was to meet to discuss the issue.

Western and Arab foreign ministers were to meet in Paris on Thursday for talks on the Syria crisis, with France warning Russia that its refusal to attend was plunging it deeper into isolation.

"I regret that Russia continues to lock itself into a vision that isolates it more and more, not just from the Arab world but also from the international community," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told journalists.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday denounced the visit by the nation's grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, to Jerusalem, calling it as a "catastrophe" that undermined the Palestinian aspirations.

Gomaa, Egypt's highest religious authority, visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem on Wednesday for the first time, along with Jordan's Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed, King Abdullah II's cousin and adviser on religious issues.

Some 1,500 refugees have headed back to neighboring Syria since a fragile U.N.-backed truce went into effect a week ago, according to official figures published on Thursday.

Currently, a total of 23,558 Syrians are taking refuge in Turkey, said the prime minister's disaster and emergency management center, which gives a regular update on the figures.

Syria on Thursday signed a preliminary accord outlining a protocol for a U.N. mission to monitor a fragile week-old ceasefire in the strife-torn country, the two sides announced.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Meqdad signed the deal with a member of a U.N. advance team, the ministry said in a statement.

Libya's interim prime minister plans to reshuffle his cabinet which has come under fire over corruption scandals and failure to consolidate the national army, a government spokesman said.

Prime Minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib "has reviewed the performance of certain ministries" and "will announce a cabinet reshuffle soon," Nasser al-Manaa told journalists late Wednesday.

Seven al-Qaida suspects, including four Somali nationals, have been killed in battles with Yemeni troops near the southern town of Loder, the ministry of defense said on Thursday.

"The heroes of the 111 battalion of the army, supported by (armed civilians) of the Popular Resistance Committees, attacked and destroyed an al-Qaida" position near Loder, in Yemen's troubled southern Abyan province, the ministry said in a statement.