Israel and the United States recently carried out a successful test of the Arrow anti-missile system over the Mediterranean Sea, the Israeli defense ministry said on Friday.

During the target-only tracking exercise, the Arrow's radar tracked a target "representative of potential ballistic missile threats facing Israel," the statement read, and "transferred information to the Citron Tree Battle Management Controller, which prepared a simulated intercept solution."

The United States and Italy back efforts by the Arab League and its plan to send a new observer mission to Syria, Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in an interview published Friday.

"We agree with the work of the Arab League and its intention to send a new, larger and more assertive observer mission to verify responsibilities and expose the (Syrian) regime," Terzi told the daily La Stampa after meeting his U.S. counterpart Hillary Clinton in Washington.

Russia on Friday accused the West of being an "accomplice" to the violence in Syria and said the country's opposition bore full responsibility for ending the ongoing violence.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Syrian President Bashar Assad's promise to stage a new constitutional referendum meant that it was now up to the armed resistance movement to take the next step.

Tanks stormed a neighborhood in the flashpoint Syrian central city of Homs as soldiers launched a house-to-house sweep of the area to crush regime opponents on Friday, activists said.

"The tanks entered the neighborhood of Inshaat overnight," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Two powerful car bombs targeting security posts ripped through Syria's second city of Aleppo on Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 175 as the Free Syrian Army blamed the regime for the attacks.

State television said "armed terrorist groups" carried out the attacks, the first in Aleppo since the outbreak of an uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad almost a year ago.

Security forces opened fire on a demonstration in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich east, fatally wounding one Shiite protester and wounding several others, activists and witnesses said on Friday.

"Munir al-Medani, 21, was wounded by a live bullet in his chest" one activist said requesting anonymity, referring to the incident which took place late Thursday in Qatif province in the kingdom's Eastern Region.

The international community cannot afford to watch the "massacre" taking place in Syria without acting, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday during a visit to Washington.

Davutoglu is urging an international conference to resolve violence that erupted when demonstrators began demanding last spring Syrian President Bashar Assad be removed from office.

Russia must confront "the reality" of the deadly crackdown in Syria, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Thursday, after Moscow vetoed a U.N. resolution condemning the violence.

"My message to my Russian colleagues is they too need to recognize the reality of the situation on the ground" in Syria, said Ashton, who was making a two-day visit to Mexico.

Malaysian police Friday said they had detained a young Saudi journalist who fled his country after Twitter comments he made about the Prophet Mohammed triggered calls for his execution.

Hamza Kashgari was taken into custody after flying into Malaysia's main international airport on Thursday, police spokesman Ramli Yoosuf told Agence France Presse.

The United States issued a correction Thursday saying it has not yet obtained a document outlining the formal charges against U.S. citizens working for pro-democracy groups in Egypt.

"Yesterday, I implied that we had the document and that we needed to translate it and read it. It turns out that that was inaccurate," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.