Five members of one family were killed in air raids on a town in Damascus province on Sunday, as Syrian warplanes bombarded a battleground town southwest of the capital, a watchdog said.

A couple and their three children were among seven civilians killed in air strikes on the village of Baraka, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the toll may rise as a number of people were buried under debris.

The leaders of Syria's main opposition National Coalition will meet in Paris on January 28 along with representatives of countries supporting them, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday.

Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Fabius provided no other details of the meeting.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has rejected the idea that President Bashar Assad will be ousted, telling state television that those who demand his removal want only bloodshed in the country.

Muallem said late on Saturday that the United States and Russia were unable to agree on Syria "because they do not agree on what is meant by 'period of transition'."

Three U.S. drone strikes killed nine suspected members of Al-Qaida in the Yemen province of Marib, a tribal chief and witnesses said on Sunday.

One raid late on Saturday targeted a vehicle transporting four suspected members of the jihadist network in Wadi Abida, east of the city of Marib, 170 kilometers (110 miles) east of Sanaa, the tribal source said.

A Yemeni tribunal specializing in terrorism began Saturday the trial of 21 suspected members of al-Qaida, including three Jordanians and an Egyptian, accused of attacks against security forces.

The defendants, who appeared in four separate groups, one comprised of the Jordanians and Egyptian, have been charged with "belonging to a criminal gang linked to al-Qaida to carry out attacks against the state police and the army," the indictment read at the hearing said.

Leading Republican Senator John McCain said on Saturday night that Washington could be doing more to back the "effort" of the Syrian people in ending the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Speaking at the beginning of a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres, McCain recalled his visit to a refugee camp in Jordan earlier that day, "to see the suffering of the Syrian people up close".

Some 200 Palestinians gathered on Saturday at a new encampment in a West Bank village, protesting for the second consecutive day Israel's intention to confiscate land.

"We have settled on the lands of the Beit Iksa village to prevent its confiscation by the Israeli army," Osama Zayed, village resident and one of the organizers of the initiative, told AFP.

An Egyptian court on Saturday dropped charges against 379 people involved in clashes against the police in 2011, following a decree by President Mohamed Morsi granting them amnesty, the official MENA news agency said.

The 379 had been accused of injuring policemen during November 2011 clashes on Mohammed Mahmoud street, near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square, that left dozens dead.

Just a few months ago, Ali Naema was playing in the Syrian army band.

Today, he's making war, not music -- but with the rebels, having swapped sides and his trumpet for an AK-47 assault rifle to join the fight against his former comrades with the aim of toppling President Bashar Assad.

The Ras al-Ain branch of the Kurdish National Council in Syria called on the Syrian opposition on Saturday to intervene over an ongoing jihadist assault on the northern city located on the Turkish border.

"Since Wednesday morning, some armed groups have launched an offensive against innocent and unarmed civilians in Ras al-Ain using various types of heavy weapons and sowing fear and panic among children and women," a statement said.