Syria has given no sign that it intends to stick to an agreement on a peace plan, Britain said Tuesday, accusing the regime of intensifying attacks on the opposition.

"There is no evidence so far that the Assad regime has any intention of adhering to any agreement it makes," Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

France said on Tuesday that Syria was not implementing a U.N. and Arab League-backed peace plan after Damascus said it had started pulling troops out of certain provinces.

The Syrian claim was "a new expression of a flagrant and unacceptable lie" that "shows a degree of impunity against which the international community absolutely must act," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

Iraqi forces have arrested 11 alleged al-Qaida members said to be responsible for attacks in the southern province of Basra that killed dozens of people, a top police officer said on Tuesday.

"Eleven criminals from al-Qaida have been arrested, including a Pakistani man who was born in Kuwait, who are responsible for recent explosions in Basra," Major General Faisal al-Ebadi, police chief of Basra, told a news conference.

Israeli security forces said on Tuesday they had begun preparations for a "fly-in" of hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists expected to arrive at Ben Gurion airport this weekend.

"We have made arrangements and are prepared for this operation, which is expected to begin from Sunday," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse, without giving further details.

Iraqi MPs have approved the first independent human rights commission in the country's history, which is to track rights violations here, lawmaker Ashwaq al-Jaff said on Tuesday.

"The main role of this commission is to monitor all violations of human rights in all fields and in all governmental and non-governmental institutions," Jaff said of the High Commission for Human Rights, which was approved by parliament on Monday.

A Cairo court said on Tuesday it had suspended an Islamists-dominated commission that had been tasked with drafting the country's new constitution.

The court, which deals with administrative issues, did not explain the reasons for its decision which was announced after lawyers and liberal political parties filed a complaint accusing the Islamists-majority parliament, which formed the panel, of having abused its powers.

Seven Bahraini policemen have been injured in a "terrorist attack" by unknown assailants in the Shiite village of Akr, south of the capital Manama, a top security official has said.

General Tareq al-Hassan, Bahrain's public security chief, said an improvised bomb exploded late Monday near a police checkpoint at the entrance to the village, "wounding seven policemen, three of them critically," Bahrain's official BNA news agency reported.

U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan will send a letter to the Security Council Tuesday on Syria, his spokesman said, the day a U.N.-Arab plan to end 13 months of bloodshed is to take effect.

"Mr. Annan will be sending a letter to the Council later today," spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told Agence France Presse.

The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday detained six Islamists whose citizenship had been revoked for alleged links to groups that fund terrorists, their lawyer said.

The six men "were summoned by the interior ministry and told that they have two weeks to get new nationality and legalize" their presence in the country, Mohammed al-Roken told Agence France Presse

Syria's foreign minister told Moscow Tuesday Damascus has started withdrawing troops in line with Kofi Annan's peace plan but Russia said the regime should implement the initiative more decisively.

The rare visit by the veteran Foreign Minister Walid Muallem to Moscow coincided with a deadline under the Annan plan for Syria to withdraw forces from protest cities amid Western worries the scheme is in tatters.