Coordinated bombings against provincial government offices in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi killed at least three people on Tuesday, while shootings in the capital left three policemen dead.

Three explosions -- a car bomb followed by two suicide attacks -- just minutes apart in Ramadi, 100 kilometers west of Baghdad, struck against Anbar provincial offices in the center of the city Tuesday afternoon.

Fugitive strongman Moammar Gadhafi denounced Libya's new leadership as a "charade" backed by NATO air strikes which will not last forever, in an audio message aired on television Tuesday.

The remarks came ahead of the first talks between US President Barack Obama and Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the National Transitional Council (NTC) -- now recognized as Libya's legitimate leaders.

Two civilians were killed on Tuesday when Syrian security forces opened fire during a raid targeting anti-regime protesters in the central flashpoint city of Homs, rights activists said.

"Two civilians were killed in the Baba Amr neighborhood. Other residents were seriously hurt in Homs, where gunfire was heard from Monday night in many neighborhoods," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, without giving further details.

Kuwaiti opposition groups called a rally for Wednesday to press for the government's resignation over an alleged corruption scandal involving a number of MPs and possibly former ministers.

The rally, called by Islamist, liberal and nationalist groups who altogether have more than 20 MPs in the 50-seat parliament, will kick start a campaign to expose those who paid and received the money and for what purposes.

The United States is increasingly convinced Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be overthrown and is preparing for a possibly violent aftermath, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The newspaper said Washington is quietly working with Turkey to plan for a post-Assad future that could see Syria's various ethnic groups battle for control of the country, potentially destabilizing neighboring states.

Jordan's King Abdullah II has warned that Israel's stance in peace talks with the Palestinian is fuelling instability in the Middle East, in remarks published Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.

"If we can't get the Israelis and Palestinians together in this next couple of days, then what signal is that for the future process?" King Abdullah asked in a WSJ interview in New York ahead of the U.N. General Assembly.

Amnesty International on Tuesday attacked the European Union's "abysmal" response to the mounting refugee crisis on Libya's borders caused by the recent Arab Spring uprisings.

A new briefing paper issued by the rights group called on EU member states to "urgently address" the worsening situation by opening their borders to the mainly sub-Saharan refugees who were forced by the recent unrest to leave their homes.

The Palestinians will not be able to secure a Security Council majority in favor of their bid to become a United Nations member state, Israel's cabinet secretary Tzvi Hauser predicted on Tuesday.

Speaking on Israeli military radio, Hauser said the Palestinians would fail to obtain the nine yes votes they need to keep alive their hopes of becoming a member state on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War.

Gunfire and shelling rocked Sanaa early Tuesday as rival military forces battled each other on a third straight day of violence in the Yemeni capital in which 53 people have been killed, residents said.

After a lull in fighting that lasted only a few hours in the night, Sanaa residents awoke at dawn to the sound of automatic gunfire and shelling, with witnesses saying troops of dissident General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar were clashing with those loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday urged Russia to support a "strong statement" at the U.N. Security Council over Syria's crackdown on protests, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

In her talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Clinton expressed "our interest in seeing the Security Council go on record with a strong statement on Syria," a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity.