A U.S. drone strike in the Yemeni town of Shehr in the eastern province of Hadramawt killed two suspected members of al-Qaida on Friday, a local official said.

"Two members of al-Qaida on a motorcycle died on the spot when targeted by a missile fired by a U.S. drone," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Saudi police shot dead a man and wounded another during an exchange of fire in Qatif, a predominantly Shiite district in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, a newspaper reported on Friday.

A police patrol came under fire Thursday night from a group of "agitators who were burning tires near a police station in Qatif," al-Eqtisadiah newspaper said, citing a police spokesman.

Syrian rebels attacked a key army base in the northwest province of Idlib on Friday, the last regime bastion in the region, and regime warplanes launched air raids in Damascus province, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several rebel groups pounded Wadi Deif amid violent clashes on the ground while regime warplanes launched air strikes around the army base.

Two Syrian air force generals have defected from the regime of President Bashar Assad and joined opposition forces in Turkey, a diplomat said on Friday.

The generals, commanders of the Regional Air Force, have crossed the border and arrived in the town of Reylanli in southern Turkey, the Turkish diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Israeli troops Friday arrested a Palestinian policeman as he tried to pass through an Israeli military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian security source told AFP.

He said that soldiers detained Firas Abu Aziz, 27, as he was on his way home to the village of Yata, near the southern city of Hebron. The Israeli army could not confirm or deny the report.

Syrian jihadist group the al-Nusra Front, blacklisted by Washington as a terror outfit, has accused the United States of seeking to keep President Bashar Assad in power.

"The continued U.S. and international support for prolonging the regime's lifespan by giving extensions (for a political transition), sending observers and trying to negotiate peace is clear to everyone," the group's leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, said in a voice recording posted online.

Iraqi protesters demonstrating against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blocked a key highway to Syria and Jordan for the sixth consecutive day on Friday, which the premier slammed as unacceptable.

Demonstrators called for Maliki to resign after he called for dialogue, while security forces barred Baghdad-based journalists from entering the province where the biggest protests were being held.

The Gaza branch of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party said on Friday it will mark its anniversary in the Hamas-ruled enclave after an accord between the two factions.

"We have agreed with (Hamas) prime minister Ismail Haniya that Fatah will celebrate its 48th anniversary on January 1 at the site of the Saraya" complex where its security forces were based, Fatah official Yehiye Rabba said.

Syrian warplanes launched air raids in Damascus province on Friday after overnight bombardments and clashes across the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog said.

"The air force for the first time attacked the Assal al-Ward area in the Kalamun region, killing one civilian, wounding dozens and destroying several homes," the Britain-based group said in a statement.

Russia, the only world power with ties to the Syrian regime, on Friday urged President Bashar Assad to talk to the opposition as Moscow itself put out feelers to the rebels.

The new pressure from Russia on the Assad regime came as Moscow revved up its bid to save a tattered peace process by first hosting a top government envoy and then planning for a meeting Saturday with Syria peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi.