Discouraged by lack of U.S. support, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have stopped short of arming Syrian rebels with the heavier weapons that could turn the tide of the war, The New York Times said Saturday.

Without the heavy weaponry, the rebels are only able to maintain a stalemate with President Bashar Assad's better-armed security forces, possibly prolonging the brutal war that began nearly 19 months ago and has already killed more than 31,000 people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have "agreed" on fighting the Iranian threat in all its forms and on managing ties with the United States, a joint statement said.

The defense minister had reportedly expressed views that conflicted with the prime minister's over the Iran nuclear issue during a recent visit to the United States, which favors sanctions and diplomacy over military action.

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa "is a man of reason" who could replace President Bashar Assad as the head of a transition administration to stop Syria's civil war, according to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"Farouq al-Sharaa is a man of reason and conscience and he has not taken part in the massacres in Syria. Nobody knows the (Syrian) system better than him," Davutoglu said Saturday on the public television channel TRT.

Forty government soldiers and nine rebels were killed on Saturday when rebels took a town in the northwestern province of Idlib near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The clashes at Khirbat al-Joz... ended when fighters of the rebel brigades took control of the area," said the Britain-based watchdog.

An influential Yemeni tribal chief called on Saturday for the repeal of ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh's immunity from prosecution.

Saleh was granted immunity under Gulf-brokered deal last year in which he stood down, bowing to domestic and international pressure, but is accused by his detractors of fueling instability in Yemen since his departure.

Forty-nine policemen were injured in clashes with demonstrators protesting against the reopening of a rubbish dump on the tourist island of Djerba on Saturday, an interior ministry spokesman told Agence France Pressse.

"A large number of protesters in the center of Gallala attacked a police post with rocks and petrol bombs," Khaled Tarrouche said. "There were 49 police injured, with fractures and other injuries caused by rocks and petrol bombs."

Mokhtar Lamani, the head of U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's office in Syria, met members of the armed opposition on Saturday, a U.N. official told Agence France Presse.

Lamani visited the Lajat area some 50 kilometers south of Damascus and "met leaders of the armed opposition," spokesman Khaled al-Masri said.

A group of seven Iranian Red Crescent workers who were kidnapped in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi were freed on Sunday, an interior ministry official told Agence France Presse.

"The seven Iranians were freed today and have left the country," said Ezzedine al-Fazzani, a spokesman for the interior ministry in the east.

Algeria's former long-time president Chadli Bendjedid, acclaimed for having introduced democracy to government institutions, died of cancer on Saturday aged 83, APS news agency reported.

Bendjedid had been admitted to the Ain Naajda military hospital in Algiers more than a week ago. He was hospitalized in Paris last January for cancer treatment and returned to hospital for brief spells in May and October.

Gunmen opened fire on the home of a Coptic Christian in the Sinai peninsula on Saturday, hours after a visit by President Mohammed Morsi to reassured Christian residents they would not be targeted again.

Gunmen "used automatic weapons when they opened fire on the house of a Coptic resident of Rafah hours after the president left," a security official told Agence France Presse.