Arab and Western powers will challenge the Syrian regime to accept a proposal to allow in humanitarian aid at the "Friends of Syria" meeting in Tunis on Friday, a U.S. official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the "unified humanitarian proposal" with counterparts on the sidelines of an international conference on Somalia in London on Thursday, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime will not fall and Iran stands beside it, the top foreign policy adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran supports the Syrian government and will oppose those who act against Syria," Ali Akbar Velayati said in remarks reported by the Fars news agency.

The Kuwaiti government on Thursday ordered a probe into the alleged transfer of millions of dollars of public funds into the private foreign accounts of the former prime minister, a statement said.

At an extraordinary meeting, the cabinet asked the Audit Bureau, the state's accounting watchdog, to "examine the transfers" and report back with the results, said a statement issued by the cabinet.

International investigators have submitted a list of Syrian military and political officials suspected of crimes against humanity to the U.N.'s top human rights official, their report said on Thursday.

"The commission has deposited with the High Commissioner (for Human Rights, Navi Pillay) a comprehensive database containing all evidence collected," said the report from an international commission of inquiry.

A delegation of senior Iraqi officials has visited Saudi Arabia in the latest sign of apparently warming ties between the neighbors, Iraq's interior ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

News of the visit came after Shiite-led Iraq said it would approve the nomination of a new ambassador to Baghdad from the Sunni-ruled kingdom -- the first since 1990.

Syria's government has "manifestly failed" to protect its people, an inquiry commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council said on Thursday.

"The human rights situation in the Syrian Arab Republic has deteriorated significantly since November 2011, causing further suffering to the Syrian people," wrote the international commission of inquiry after conducting 136 new interviews since its previous report last November.

The Syrian regime was not responsible for the deaths of two Western journalists who "sneaked" into the country, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

"We reject statements holding Syria responsible for the deaths of journalists who sneaked into its territory at their own risk," said a ministry statement carried by SANA state news agency.

A Kuwaiti Shiite lawmaker on Thursday proposed an anti-hatred bill that calls for stiff jail terms for those who incite religious, social, racial and gender hatred.

The proposal is aimed at preventing increasing levels of hate speech in the traditional and electronic media in the oil-rich but ethnically and religiously divided Gulf state, MP Faisal al-Duwaisan said in the written bill.

A wave of attacks blamed on al-Qaida killed at least 39 people on Thursday, in what Iraq's parliament speaker said was an attempt to derail an Arab League summit planned for the end of March.

Security officials and medical sources said more than 250 people were wounded in the attacks, which hit six different provinces, and came just days after a suicide blast near a Baghdad police academy.

Campaigning began in Iran on Thursday for parliamentary elections to take place on March 2, with officials and state media calling for a big turnout to counter the "enemies' threats" against the regime.

It will be the Islamic republic's first national poll since the controversial 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.