Israel's threats of military action against Iran over its nuclear programme only serve to boost the defiance of the Islamic republic, the head of the Revolutionary Guards said on Friday.

"The enemies want to stop us continuing our path... but these threats only reinforce our determination to continue in the same direction," General Mohammed Ali Jafari said in a speech to thousands of members of the country's Basij militia, according to the Guards' Sepahnews website.

Jordan has named carrier diplomat Walid Obeidat as a new ambassador to Israel, filling a position that has been vacant since 2010, a senior official said on Friday.

"The council of ministers has decided to appoint Walid Obeidat as an ambassador to Israel," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Israel's media on Friday splashed their front pages with pictures of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu literally drawing a red line for Iran on a bomb diagram at the United Nations General Assembly.

But while some commentators took jabs at the cartoonish visual aid, they said Netanyahu had scored a major PR coup, winning global headlines while setting a deadline that could help ease tense relations with the White House.

The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday voted overwhelmingly to extend the mandate of its probe into rights violations in Syria, condemning the "increasing number of massacres" in the country.

Of the council's 47 members, 41 voted in favor of the resolution allowing the Commission of Inquiry to continue its investigation, which began a year ago.

Dozens of prisoners were on the loose on Friday after militants attacked a prison in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, leaving at least 13 policemen dead, officials said.

The violence at the prison comes after al-Qaida's Iraqi front group announced a campaign to regain territory and said it aimed to help its jailed members escape.

Rebels unleashed an unprecedented barrage of mortar fire against troops in Aleppo after announcing a "decisive" battle for Syria's second city, residents and a watchdog say.

Shells crashed down at a steady rate and clashes were widespread, leaving layers of dust and smoke over Aleppo, according to the residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew the world a stark red line Thursday, warning that Iran could have a nuclear bomb in less than a year and demanding international action.

Wielding a red marker pen and a cartoonish diagram of a round bomb with a fizzing fuse, Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly that the international community must put a limit on Tehran's uranium enrichment.

Several thousand Syrian rebels on Thursday afternoon launched what they said would be a decisive battle for control of the strategic northern city of Aleppo.

"Tonight, Aleppo will be ours or we will be defeated," Abu Furat, a rebel commander, told AFP.

Syrian authorities on Thursday sent text messages over cell phones nationwide with a message for rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime: "Game over."

The messages signed by the Syrian Arab Army also urged the rebels to surrender their weapons and warned the countdown to evict foreign fighters has begun. The texts appear to be part of the regime's psychological battle against the rebels, but are highly unlikely to have any effect on fighters intent on toppling Assad.

Russia's U.N. Security Council veto is "just an excuse" for world powers not to intervene in Syria, but the regime is going to fall without their help, the chief of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood told AFP Thursday.

"Russia is just an excuse for the rest of the great powers not to topple (Syrian President Bashar Assad's) regime," said Mohammed Riyad al-Shaqfa, complaining of an international unwillingness to "get sucked into" the conflict in Syria.