Moammar Gadhafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim was captured on Thursday outside of the former Libyan strongman's hometown of Sirte, field commanders from the new regime told Agence France Presse.

"Misrata fighters contacted us and gave us the information that Moussa Ibrahim has been captured," said Mustafa bin Dardef, of the National Transitional Council's Zintan Brigade.

Anti-regime activists inside Syria oppose the Syrian National Council, an opposition body formed in Turkey last month, because it favors foreign intervention, prominent activist Michel Kilo said on Thursday.

"The opposition within the national council are in favor of foreign intervention to resolve the crisis in Syria, while those at home are not," Kilo claimed in remarks to Agence France Presse at his home in Damascus.

The Palestinians have secured eight Security Council yes votes for their U.N. membership bid, just one short of the nine they need, the Palestinian foreign minister said on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters in Ramallah, Riyad al-Malki said he had received assurances from two additional nations -- Nigeria and Gabon -- that they would vote in favor of the Palestinian bid for full state membership at the U.N.

Pro-regime demonstrators on Thursday tried to attack the U.S. ambassador to Syria, an opposition leader said, as Damascus accused Washington of inciting "armed groups" into violence against its army.

The angry mob of nearly 100 Syrians tried to storm an office in the capital where the American ambassador, Robert Ford, had just arrived to meet opposition figure Hassan Abdelazim, the latter said.

The public prosecutor in OPEC member Kuwait has expanded an unprecedented probe into the bank accounts of several MPs suspected of receiving illegal deposits, local media reported on Thursday.

Citing unnamed sources, al-Jarida daily said the bank accounts of four more MPs were referred to the public prosecution, raising the number of lawmakers under investigation to 14.

The U.N. Security Council concluded talks on Syria Wednesday without an agreement on a new resolution, after Russia slammed Europe's effort to threaten sanctions against Damascus.

The 15-member Council discussed rival draft resolutions on the Syria crisis drawn up by France, Britain, Germany and Portugal on one side and Russia on the other.

A Bahraini special court sentenced Thursday a protester to death and another to life in jail after convicting them of killing a policeman, BNA state news agency said.

The same court sentenced 20 Shiite medics to between five and 15 years in prison for their roles in a Shiite-led month-long protest which authorities quashed in mid-March.

World police body Interpol issued an arrest notice Thursday for fallen Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's son Saadi for alleged crimes during his time as head of the country's football federation.

The new Libyan authorities requested the notice against Saadi, believed to be in Niger, "for allegedly misappropriating properties through force and armed intimidation when he headed the Libyan Football Federation," Interpol said in a statement.

Saudi men were voting on Thursday in municipal elections, the last all-male affair in the Muslim kingdom after a royal decree this week gave women the right to cast ballots in four years.

Some 5,324 candidates are competing for 1,056 seats -- only the second elections in Saudi Arabian history -- to fill half the seats in the country's 285 councils. The other half are appointed by the government.

Turkey on Thursday slammed Israeli plans to expand a settlement in east Jerusalem and said the move further underlined the need for the world to back the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership.

"Israel's decision raises serious doubts about its sincerity and its true intentions," Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement. "It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and is unacceptable."