Russia said on Saturday there was no need for Syrian President Bashar Assad to use chemical weapons against rebels because his forces were making steady advances on the ground.

"The regime, as the opposition is saying out in the open, is enjoying military success on the ground," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a joint press appearance with his Italian counterpart Emma Bonino.

King Abdullah was back in Saudi Arabia on Saturday after flying home early from a convalescence stay in Morocco to follow events, as the Syrian conflict intensifies, state media reported.

The king flew back on Friday evening from Morocco, where he had been staying since May 31, "because of the turn of events that the region is currently going through," the official SPA news agency said.

Clashes between Libyan elite forces and gunmen killed six soldiers in Benghazi on Saturday, the army said, in the latest bout of unrest as the government struggles to control rebels from the 2011 uprising.

The interim leader of Libya's army warned of the danger of a "bloodbath" as the unrest in Benghazi flared again a week after violence killed more than 30 people in the eastern city.

The United States stands behind its assessment that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons, vowing Friday there will be no repeat of the damaging mistake it made over Iraq.

And President Barack Obama will outline the proof to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin when they meet next week on the sidelines of a G8 summit.

A Gazan man was seriously injured on Friday when he set himself on fire over a property dispute with the authorities , and his brother was hurt trying to save him, a relative said.

Ibrahim al-Tarturi, 20, "set himself on fire to protest against the seizure of his house by members of Hamas," the Islamist group that rules Gaza, the source said.

The conflict in Syria topped the agenda in a videoconference on Friday among G8 leaders ahead of their summit next week, and a day after the U.S. stiffened its Syrian policy, the French presidency said.

U.S. President Barack Obama and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Italy using a videolink had "an extensive exchange on the subject of the G8 (summit) and in particular on Syria," an aide to French President Francois Hollande said about the nearly hour-long talks.

Tripoli need not immediately hand over the late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi's former spy chief, Abdullah Senussi, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity, the Hague-based court said Friday.

The temporary suspension of the order requiring Libya to hand Senussi over came amid a legal tug-of-war between the ICC and Tripoli over where Senussi and also Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam should be tried.

The White House on Friday all but ruled out the notion of mounting a no-fly zone in Syria, billing it as difficult, dangerous and costly, and unsuitable to halting close quarters ground battles.

A day after U.S. officials pledged to stiffen military help to Syrian rebels, likely moving towards sending some form of arms for the first time, they made it clear that swift U.S. mission creep in the country is not on the cards.

Representatives from countries that support the Syrian opposition met Friday in Istanbul with rebel military chief General Selim Idriss, to discuss the possible delivery of weapons, a Syrian opposition spokesman said.

"Over the next 24 to 48 hours, there are going to be several meetings between the Syrian Military Council (SMC) and different countries to understand the needs of the SMC and to begin to really satisfy those needs," said Khaled Saleh, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Council.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama will hold a bilateral meeting at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland after Washington upped the ante in the Syrian war by pledging military aid to rebels, the Kremlin's foreign policy aide said.

Putin and Obama will meet on the sidelines of the G8 summit at the Lough Erne resort on Monday and will also kickstart a Syria session at the summit at the request of host Britain.