A top Iranian military officer on Saturday denounced what he called an "Arab dictatorial front" and claimed that the "Persian Gulf has belonged to Iran forever", media reports said.

"The Arab dictatorial regimes in the Persian Gulf are unable to contain the popular uprisings," General Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, was widely quoted as saying by Iranian media on Saturday.

The Taliban on Saturday announced the beginning of their spring military offensive against the U.S.-led coalition, a day after a new Pentagon report claimed that the militants' fighting spirit was low after sustaining heavy losses on the battlefield, Associated Press reported.

In a two-page statement, the Taliban said that beginning Sunday they would launch attacks on military bases, convoys and Afghan officials, including members of the government's peace council, who are working to reconcile with top insurgent leaders.

Ismail Haniya, the prime minister of the Islamist Hamas movement in power in the Gaza Strip, said on Saturday he was "ready to resign."

"I am prepared to tender my resignation as part of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah," the secular party of Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmud Abbas.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has imposed new media restrictions and threatened hefty fines and closure of news organizations allegedly undermining national security, press reports said on Saturday.

Under a decree issued on Friday, the media will be prohibited from reporting anything that contradicts the strict Islamic sharia law or serves "foreign interests and undermines national security," Agence France Presse reported.

The U.S. on Friday imposed new sanctions on Syria over its violent repression of protests, and again singled out Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which it said was aiding the crackdown, as the EU agreed to impose an arms embargo against Damascus.

The asset freezes and restrictions on financial transactions notably targeted Maher al-Assad, the powerful brother of President Bashar Al-Assad, who commands Syria's feared Fourth Armored Division.

More than 50 Syrians were killed as tens of thousands of protesters rallied for a "day of rage" after Friday prayers, defying warnings of a harsh crackdown, rights activists and officials said.

Protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime were held in most major towns, witnesses said, in pro-democracy demonstrations after the Muslim weekly prayers as on past Fridays.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal will meet next week in Cairo with Palestinian president and Fatah leader Mahmud Abbas to sign a unity deal, a senior Fatah official said on Friday, Agence France Presse reported.

It will be the first time the two men have met since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007, forcibly ousting Fatah from the coastal territory after days of bloody street battles.

The al-Qaida terror network is among the suspects in connection with a bomb attack that killed 16 in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, the government said Friday.

Communications Minister Khalid Naciri said that investigators would pursue all leads including possible links to al-Qaida which operates a North African offshoot which is active in the region, Agence France Presse reported.

Embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh has accused Qatar of a "conspiracy" and threatened to pull out of a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) transition deal to end the violence in Yemen.

"Contacts are under way for the signing of the agreement on Monday in Riyadh, but we have reservations about some mediators involved in a conspiracy," Saleh said in an interview with the Russia Today television channel.

Human Rights Watch on Friday called for the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the deadly crackdown on protesters in Syria and to "strongly condemn repression of peaceful protests."

"Syria’s President Bashar Assad needs to hear an unequivocal message from the Human Rights Council that violent suppression of peaceful protests is unacceptable and will have consequences," said Julie de Rivero, Geneva director at Human Rights Watch.