Syria's foreign minister has sent a letter to Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi requesting changes to a proposal to send a 500-strong delegation of observers to Damascus, the Arab body said on Friday.

The pan-Arab body had agreed to send 500 members of human rights groups, media representatives and military observers to Syria, which said it would welcome them to see the situation on the ground and help implement a peace plan.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Friday called for restraint over the Syria crisis, after talks with his French counterpart who accused President Bashar Assad of being deaf to pressure.

"We are calling for restraint and caution. This is our position," Putin told a news conference, the day after his foreign minister had likened the situation in Syria to a civil war.

An Italian military training aircraft heading home from the Dubai air show crashed into the sea on Friday off the Gulf emirate, but both crew ejected safely, officials said.

"The plane crashed off Dubai shortly after taking off en route for Italy after taking part in the air show," an aviation source told Agence France Presse without speculating on the cause of the accident.

Bombings against a policeman's home and three mosques killed eight people and wounded 13 on Friday, security officials said, in the worst violence to hit Iraq in weeks.

A bomb targeting the home of a policeman in the Saqlawiya district outside the one-time insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, about 60 kilometers west of Baghdad, killed four people early on Friday, police Captain Omar Abbud said.

Turkey warned Friday that the conflict in Syria risks turning into a civil war, while France's chief diplomat said it was now too late for the Syrian regime to finally implement reforms.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pointed to the new attacks by army defectors, "therefore I say there is a risk of transforming into civil war. It is now the right time to stop this massacre, and therefore the Arab initiative is important," he said.

U.N.-brokered talks are underway on relocating several thousand exiled Iranian opposition members from a camp north of Baghdad to another location in Iraq, officials said on Friday.

Iraqi authorities have decided to close Camp Ashraf, which has hosted members of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI) since the 1980s, by the end of 2011.

Six out of 10 Jewish settlers were drafted into combat units for their compulsory military service, an Israeli army study showed on Friday, indicating a sharp rise in numbers.

According to a study on draft trends which was published by the military's personnel division, Jewish settlers are more likely than regular Israelis to try to join combat units.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday for a mass rally aimed at pushing Egypt's military rulers to cede power 10 months after an uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak.

As general elections draw near -- the first polls since Mubarak was ousted in February -- protesters are demanding more control over the constitution the new parliament is set to draft and a shift to civilian rule.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Friday that the "time has come to increase sanctions" against the Syrian regime.

"The situation is no longer sustainable," and "the ongoing repression is unacceptable," Juppe told reporters during a visit to Ankara.

The risk of civil war looms large over Syria as army defectors increasingly take aim at regime forces and diplomacy fails to resolve the escalating crisis, experts say.

"We are moving down that track and the longer the international community and the Arab League delay (action), the sooner we will be there," said Salman Shaikh, head of the Brookings Doha Center.