Russia on Thursday officially recognized Libya's rebels as the governing authority in the country, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The Russian Federation recognizes Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) as the ruling authority and notes its reform program that includes the development of a new constitution, holding general elections and forming the government," it said.

Libyan rebels on Wednesday arrested foreign minister Abdelati al-Obeidi, a key figure of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, a senior rebel commander said.

"Yes, Abdelati al-Obeidi was arrested," Mahdi al-Harati, vice chairman of the rebel military council, told journalists in the capital without giving further details.

Seif al-Islam, fugitive son of fallen Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, said Wednesday in an audio tape on an Arabic-language channel that he was still in the country and the fight against rebels goes on.

"I am talking to you from a suburb of Tripoli," he told the Damascus-based Al-Rai television station. "We want to reassure the Libyan people that we are still here. The resistance continues and victory is near."

A Bahraini Shiite teenage protester was fatally wounded on Wednesday when he was struck in the face by a tear gas canister fired by security forces, the opposition group Al-Wefaq said.

Jawad Ahmed al-Sheikh, 14, was hit in the Shiite village of Sitra during a small protest after Eid al-Fitr prayers, the Gulf kingdom's main Shiite opposition group said on its Facebook page.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Wednesday that Iran's alleged attempts to build long-range missiles and nuclear weapons could lead unnamed countries to launch a pre-emptive attack.

"Its military nuclear and ballistic ambitions constitute a growing threat that may lead to a preventive attack against Iranian sites that would provoke a major crisis that France wants to avoid at all costs," he said.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday warned against the United States taking "control" of the uprisings that have swept the Arab world, state television reported.

"The events currently taking place in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and elsewhere are key (events) for Muslim people," the television's website quoted Khamenei as saying.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's office defended on Wednesday a Libyan rebel commander who once reportedly led a jihadi group with ties to al-Qaida, insisting Libya's revolution is not led by Islamists.

A senior official in the Elysee told Agence France Presse that Sarkozy's senior own military aide had met Adbul Hakim Belhadj, the rebel commander who led the assault on Moammar Gadhafi's bunker complex, and had no concerns about his affiliations.

Ailing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused his opponents of being corrupt and arms dealers who are exploiting youthful protesters demanding his ouster, in a televised address.

"Those who went to the University Square to support the youth revolution that demands the ouster of the regime ... have fed on corruption, and are dealers of arms and land," Saleh said in the address aired late Tuesday on state television as he received well-wishers at his residence in Riyadh.

Syrian security forces searching for anti-government protesters raided houses in central Syria and made arrests, activists and residents said Wednesday.

The troops backed by tanks and military vehicles entered districts in Homs and Hama as part of efforts to crush five months of street protests against President Bashar Assad.

Iran believes Saudi Arabia's security is linked to its own security, an Iranian foreign ministry official said Wednesday, reacting to a Saudi allegation that Tehran was "targeting" the kingdom.

"Iran has always wanted the stability, peace and progress of Saudi Arabia," the Fars news agency quoted the unidentified official as saying.