NATO, accused of mission failure by Libyan rebels, admitted Wednesday it has to be "particularly careful" with its air strikes as government troops are using civilians as human shields, but vowed to do everything to protect civilians in Misrata.

France pledged to open a sea corridor to the besieged Mediterranean port and rebels played down losing considerable ground to government forces as just the usual stakes in desert warfare.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti accused Israel on Wednesday of carrying out an airstrike a day earlier on a car on Sudan's Red Sea coast that killed two people.

Karti's charge came as a number of Israeli newspapers spoke of the same thing, but the Israeli military and foreign ministry both declined to comment.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday sent a message to U.S. President Barack Obama, following the withdrawal of American warplanes from Libya, the official Libyan news agency JANA said.

"The leader of the revolution (Gadhafi) sent on Wednesday a message to U.S. President Barack Obama after the United States withdrew from the aggressive, colonialist coalition crusading against Libya," said the agency without specifying the contents of the message.

Scores of people were missing at sea on Wednesday after a tiny boat carrying more than 200 African migrants fleeing Libya capsized in the night amid three-meter-high waves, officials said.

Coast guard spokesman Vittorio Alessandro told Agence France Presse from the southern Italian island of Lampedusa that 48 survivors had been rescued and a helicopter crew aiding the high-seas rescue operation had spotted some 20 bodies near the boat.

The Syrian parliament is preparing to adopt major reforms in May, including an end to emergency rule, a politician close to the regime said Wednesday.

"There will be an extraordinary session from May 2 to 6 in which social and political laws will be adopted in line with the reforms desired by the head of state," the politician told Agence France Presse.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu voiced his country's backing for a Syrian government reform package on Wednesday when he met President Bashar al-Assad, whose government has been shaken by three weeks of political unrest.

"Davutoglu expressed his country's support for the reform package adopted by the Syrian authorities," said the official SANA news agency citing a statement by the Syrian presidency.

More than 200 Iranian parliamentarians on Wednesday condemned the "frightening crimes" of Saudi troops in Bahrain and demanded their departure, state television website reported.

"Today the protest shouts of Muslims in Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Afghanistan, even in Saudi Arabia and many other countries are being heard due to the frightening crimes of Saudi occupiers against the oppressed people of Bahrain," they said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday to meet with Saudi King Abdullah, as the Arabian Peninsula is shaken by spiraling unrest in Yemen.

The meeting, which will be Gates' first with King Abdullah since the monarch returned home in February after months of treatment abroad for a back ailment, comes amid mounting international anger over bloodshed in the kingdom's southern neighbor Yemen and pressure on its president to stand down.

Syrian President Bashar Assad should immediately order his security forces to stop using unjustified lethal force against anti-government protesters, Human Rights Watch said.

"For three weeks, Syria's security forces have been firing on largely peaceful protesters," Sarah Leah Whitson, the New York-based rights group's Middle East director, said in a statement late Tuesday.

Reaching peace in the Middle East is more urgent than ever as pro-democracy uprisings rock the Arab world, President Barack Obama said Tuesday after meeting his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres.

Separately, the United States warned that it was concerned about Israeli plans to build more than 900 new homes in east Jerusalem, reopening an old controversy between Washington and the Israeli government over settlements.