Tribesmen on Monday kidnapped eight people, among them two Syrians and two Saudis, in southwestern Yemen in a bid to secure the release of two fellow tribesmen, a tribal chief told Agence France Presse.

"Tribesmen from the Subayha tribe intercepted several trucks on the coastal road between the provinces of Lahj and Aden, kidnapping two Syrians, two Saudis and four Yemenis, among them a colonel in the army," said Wahib al-Mansoub.

The opposition Syrian National Council, often accused of failing to represent the diverse blocs fighting the regime, is planning a major makeover at a meeting in Doha next week, a member said Monday.

"The secretariat preliminary meetings will begin on the 15th and 16th of October while the council members will hold a meeting on the 17th," SNC member Louay al-Safi told Agence France Presse.

Iraqi authorities carried out six more death sentences on Monday, bringing to 23 the number of people executed in a week, defying international calls for a halt to Baghdad's use of capital punishment.

A total of 119 people have been executed by Iraq so far this year, according to an Agence France Presse tally based on public justice ministry announcements, already far outpacing 2011 when 68 people were put to death.

Turkey's military Monday struck back at Syrian military positions after a shell fired by the neighboring country landed in a Turkish border area, a Turkish official told Agence France Presse.

Turkey retaliated in kind after the Syrian shell landed in Altinozu district, in southeastern Hatay province, at around 1200 GMT, said the official speaking on condition of anonymity.

Yemen has dismantled a spy ring that included Iranians who entered the country posing as investors looking to set up a factory, the defense ministry said on its website Monday.

The spy cell also had members from Syria and Yemen, the 26sep.net website said, citing an informed source.

Syria on Monday accused Turkey of having made a "political and diplomatic gaffe" with its suggestion that Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa take over from the country's embattled President Bashar Assad.

"What (Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet) Davutoglu said amounts to a flagrant political and diplomatic gaffe," Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said, quoted on state television.

Nineteen Egyptian policemen were killed in an accident on Monday after their driver lost control of their truck in the Sinai, where security forces are battling Islamist militants, state media reported.

Another six policemen were injured in the accident near the border with Israel, the official MENA news agency reported.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned on Monday that rising violence along the Syrian-Turkish border and the effect of the Syrian conflict on Lebanon were extremely dangerous.

"The situation in Syria has dramatically worsened. It is posing serious risks to the stability of Syria's neighbors and the entire region," Ban said at the opening of the World Forum for Democracy in the French city of Strasbourg.

A string of rebel strongholds, including in Daraa and Homs provinces and the commercial capital Aleppo, were rocked by shelling and clashes from dawn on Monday that left at least 23 people dead, a watchdog said.

Twenty of the deaths occurred when the army launched an intensive pre-dawn assault on the town of Karak al-Sharqi in the southern province of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Turkish jets bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq overnight, military sources told AFP, but it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.

At least 12 F-16 fighter jets took off from the Diyarbakir base in the southeast and targeted four camps in the Kandil Mountains and the surrounding area where the leadership of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) is believed to be hiding, the sources added.