Fresh protests shook Syria on Monday as thousands took to the streets a day after 11 people were killed by security forces as the clamor for an end to martial law billowed, activists said.

Protests gripped the central city of Homs, the protest hub of Daraa in the south as well as in Jisr al-Shoughour near the northwestern city of Idleb despite pledges by the president to lift a draconian emergency law.

At least seven people were killed overnight by Syrian security forces in the flashpoint town of Homs, rights activists told Agence France Presse on Monday.

The deaths occurred when security forces opened fire with live rounds late Sunday to disperse demonstrators in the Bab Sba'a are of the town, 160 kilometers to the north of Damascus, witnesses said.

Two suicide car bombs exploded at an entrance to Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone Monday, killing at least five people and wounding 15 others, a security spokesman said.

The attack occurred at around 8:30 am at an entrance to the Green Zone, where many foreign embassies and Iraqi government offices are based, as a queue of cars was waiting to enter.

Israel's police raised the alert level nationwide, while the army division deployed around Gaza said it was "ready for every scenario" as the Jewish state prepared for the feast of Passover.

"Thousands of police have been deployed across the whole country, and particularly in the Jerusalem region," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Tehran's arch-foe the United States of wanting to create tension between Iran and Arabs, adding that the attempt would fail.

"America is trying to sow discord among Shiites and Sunnis ... they want to create tension between Iran and Arabs ... but their plan will fail," the hardliner said at Iran's annual Army Day parade on Monday, where the military displayed a range of home-built drones and missiles.

Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of the Libyan leader who is battling a rebellion, claimed "we didn't commit any crime against our people," in an interview with The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The 38-year-old Saif Gadhafi told the Post in an hour-long interview in Tripoli that evidence of Libyan forces firing on anti-government demonstrators is false, likening it to reports of pre-war Iraq hiding weapons of mass destruction.

The State Department has been secretly financing opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad, The Washington Post reported, citing previously undisclosed diplomatic documents provided to the newspaper by the WikiLeaks website.

One of the outfits funded by the U.S. is Barada TV, a London-based satellite channel that broadcasts anti-government news into Syria, the Post reported Sunday. Barada's chief editor, Malik al-Abdeh, is a cofounder of the Syrian exile group Movement for Justice and Development.

At least four people were killed and around 50 wounded when Syrian security forces opened fire on a funeral procession in Talbisseh near the central town of Homs on Sunday, witnesses said.

Regime supporters also broke up two rallies in southern Syria, wounding five people after a presidential vow to end emergency rule within a week was dismissed as not enough and was followed by new protests.

Gulf foreign ministers met Sunday in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh to discuss the crisis in Yemen, after proposing an exit plan for embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A Yemeni opposition delegation, led by Mohammed Salem Bassandawa, himself a former foreign minister, and Yassin Saeed Noman, head of the opposition Common Forum, were in Riyadh, seeking details on a plan for Saleh's departure.

A pledge by Syria's embattled president to lift almost 50 years of draconian emergency rule within a week was brushed aside as not enough on Sunday, as activists called for more protests.

President Bashar al-Assad's long-awaited announcement came on Saturday, on the eve of Independence Day, after a month of bloody protests and a global outcry for change in the autocratic country.