Tunisian security forces arrested five Salafist "terrorists" implicated in two failed attacks on Wednesday in resort towns on Tunisia's eastern coast, the interior ministry announced.

"The interior ministry's special forces have arrested five terrorists with direct links to the assailants who tried to carry out simultaneous terrorist attacks in Sousse and Monastir," a statement said.

A Syrian army shelling of Damascus killed six people Wednesday and 11 others died in a rebel attack on a Alawite village in central Syria, a monitoring group said.

The army targeted the southern Damascus neighborhood of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, killing "a woman, three children and two men", said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A car bomb intended for Egyptian troops in the Sinai exploded on Wednesday without causing any injuries, security officials said.

The bomb near the north Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwayid was discovered before the planned attack.

The United States is aiming to help the Iraqi government battle an increasing threat from Al-Qaida linked terror groups with military sales and intelligence sharing, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

"We do want to help the Iraqis develop the capability to target these networks effectively and precisely," the senior administration official said, after a two-hour meeting between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The Palestinians accused Israel Wednesday of trying to wreck peace talks with plans to build 1,500 new settler homes in east Jerusalem, hours after it freed 26 Palestinian prisoners.

A spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said the move "destroys the peace process and is a message to the international community that Israel is a country that does not respect international law".

Several U.S. senators have accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of promoting "a sectarian and authoritarian agenda" just as the political leader pays a visit to Washington this week.

In a letter sent Tuesday to President Barack Obama, six senators expressed alarm at the "deteriorating situation in Iraq" and urged Obama to expand counterterrorism assistance while pressing the Shiite prime minister to reconcile with Sunni and Kurdish leaders.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday blasted critics of a U.S.-Russia initiative for a peace conference on Syria, warning that toppling the Assad regime militarily posed a "huge threat" to the area.

"Open objections have surfaced against holding this Russia-U.S. meeting (dubbed Geneva II), not only among Syrian sides but also among capitals, both in neighboring and non-neighboring states," Lavrov said during a visit to Athens, according to the official translation.

Shiite Muslim rebels killed 10 Sunni Islamists in Yemen Wednesday and wounded several others, in an attack in the northern province of Saada, an Islamist chief said.

The Zaidi rebels fired mortars and rockets at the Mazraa mosque and the surrounding area in Dammaj during noon prayers, said Muheeb al-Dhali, spokesman of the tribal Al-Nusra Alliance in the region.

Egyptian police entered Al-Azhar University in Cairo on Wednesday to confront Islamist protesters, the first time security forces have moved onto a campus since a 2010 court ruling.

The police took the action at the prestigious Islamic university following a request from its administration, the interior ministry said.

Some 800 women, children and elderly civilians trapped in the besieged town of Moadamiyet al-Sham, southwest of Damascus, have been evacuated, activists said Wednesday.

Supervised by the Red Crescent, they were escorted from the rebel-held town a day earlier in coordination with the regime.