Almost 3,000 people have gone missing in Syria since the start of anti-regime protests more than four months ago, the Avaaz non-governmental organization said in a statement on Thursday.

"Avaaz has today revealed the identities of 2,918 Syrians who have been arrested by Syrian security forces and whose whereabouts are now unknown," the organization said in statement received by Agence France Presse in Nicosia.

Scores of Palestinian police on Thursday raided the Ramallah home of ex-strongman Mohammed Dahlan who is under investigation for murder and corruption.

Witnesses in Ramallah's al-Tirah neighborhood said a large number of police and security forces had surrounded his home at 7:00 am (04:00 GMT) before forcing their way in and arresting around 10 of his bodyguards.

Al-Qaida's new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri praised anti-regime protestors in Syria in a video released Wednesday claiming the United States is seeking regime change in Damascus, U.S.-based monitors said.

Calling the pro-democracy activists "mujahideen," or holy warriors, Zawahiri hailed their efforts in "teaching lessons to the aggressor, the oppressor, the traitor, the disloyal, and standing up against his oppression" in a video the SITE Intelligence Group said was posted on extremist online forums.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday said he was ready for "sacrifice" to defeat NATO and the rebels who are trying to unseat him, in an audio message to his loyalists.

"We are not afraid. We will defeat them," the Libyan strongman said of the NATO alliance and the insurgents.

Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak, due to go on trial next week for murder, is refusing food in his hospital detention and has become extremely weak, state media reported on Wednesday.

Mubarak, 83, has been detained since April on charges of ordering the killings of anti-regime protesters and corruption. He is under arrest in a Red Sea resort hospital, where he receives treatment for a heart condition.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari demanded on Wednesday that Iran stop shelling positions of Kurdish rebels inside Iraq, saying it damages ties between the neighboring countries.

"We again demand that the Iranian government stop its continuing shelling" of the separatist Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) "because this is not constructive for Iraqi-Iranian relations and damages ties," he told reporters.

A suicide bomber blew himself up to avoid arrest in the eastern Algerian town of Bouhamza, causing no other casualties, newspapers reported Wednesday.

According to El Watan's online edition, the suspect set off an explosives belt he was wearing when local security encircled him as he left a shop after buying large quantities of food on Tuesday.

Iranian exiles Wednesday rejected a U.S. plan to relocate thousands of outlawed regime opponents from Iraq's Camp Ashraf to another Iraqi site pending a transfer to nations willing to accept them.

The fate of the 30-year-old camp, located near the border with Iran and home to some 3,400 people, has been in the spotlight since an Iraqi security raid in April left 34 dead and scores injured, triggering sharp condemnation.

Local Palestinian elections planned for October 22 will only take place in the West Bank and not in Gaza, a senior electoral source said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, the official said the government had informed the Central Elections Commission (CEC) of a decision taken earlier on Wednesday to limit the elections planned for October to the West Bank.

Some 200 youth activists who oppose Syria's regime opened a four-day meeting in Istanbul Wednesday, hoping to improve coordination among the groups working to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The group that includes Syrians living in the country, as well as in the United States, Europe and Saudi Arabia, are united in "trying to bring together the new Syria," said Banah Ghadbian, a 17-year-old Syrian-American.