Missiles fired from the sea slammed into Al-Qaida positions in the southern Yemeni city of Zinjibar on Sunday killing at least 16 suspected militants, a local official said.

He said the heavy shelling began overnight targeting the northeastern suburbs of Zinjibar, which jihadists have controlled since May following fierce fighting with government troops.

Syria said Sunday that two deadly bomb blasts in Damascus were aimed at sabotaging peace efforts, as U.N. experts prepared to join a government-led humanitarian mission to devastated protest hubs.

"Yesterday's explosions were carried out by terrorists supported by foreign powers which finance and arm them," charged Al-Baath newspaper, mouthpiece of Syria's ruling party of the same name.

Israel's intelligence service Mossad agrees with U.S. assessments of Iran's nuclear ambitions, even though Israeli leaders have talked about Tehran's plans to acquire nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported late Saturday.

"Their people ask very hard questions, but Mossad does not disagree with the U.S. on the weapons program," the newspaper quoted an unnamed former senior U.S. intelligence official as saying.

Israeli troops wounded a six-year-old Palestinian boy on Sunday when they opened fire east of the town of Rafah, in southern Gaza, Palestinian medical sources said.

"A six-year-old Palestinian child was wounded by Israeli army gunfire near the Kerem Shalom crossing, east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, which is where the family lives," emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya told AFP.

Two "terrorists" were killed as a booby-trapped car they were driving blew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in a suburb of Damascus, Syria's state news agency SANA reported on Sunday.

It said the blast in Yarmouk camp on Saturday, the same day as authorities said 27 people were killed in two suspected car bombings in central Damascus, also damaged parked cars and shattered windows of nearby buildings.

Two gunmen shot dead on Sunday a U.S. citizen who worked at a language school in Yemen's second city of Taez, a security official said.

The assailants rode a motorbike in their attack on the man, who was the deputy director of a Swedish language center in the city, 270 kilometers (173 miles) southwest of Sanaa, the official said on condition of anonymity, adding they fled the scene after the shooting.

Iran, Syria's regional ally, on Saturday condemned deadly bomb blasts that rocked Damascus and blamed them on unnamed countries supplying arms to Syrian rebels, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"The responsibility of such actions lies with those whose agenda is to arm and provoke armed groups," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a statement.

Egypt's parliament and senate voted on Saturday for a panel tasked with drafting the country's new constitution to include 50 percent lawmakers from the Islamist-dominated parliament.

In a joint session, both houses of parliament were discussing the criteria for choosing the members of the 100-strong constituent assembly that will write a new charter.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside the White House Saturday to demand that the United States "stop the massacre in Syria," where an estimated 8,000 people have been killed in a regime crackdown.

Wearing T-shirts declaring "I have a dream of a free Syria" and "No longer afraid," the demonstrators -- who numbered 4,000, according to organizers -- were marking the first anniversary of a bloody revolt against President Bashar Assad's regime.

Bulgaria on Saturday urged all its nationals to "immediately" leave Syria due to the worsening security situation in the violence-wracked country after a year of unrest.

"The foreign ministry calls on all Bulgarian citizens in Syria to immediately leave the country," the foreign ministry said.