The United Nations envoy to war-torn Syria said Friday that he will know by the end of June if there is any appetite among the opposing sides to find a peaceful way out of the conflict.

During closed discussions with the 15-member U.N. Security Council, Staffan de Mistura acknowledged that the "odds and conditions for launching a political transition are no better now than six months ago," diplomats at the briefing said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Friday on Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen and those who have "influence over them" to come to the negotiating table and end the unrest in the Gulf nation.

"This has to be a two-way street," Kerry told reporters, saying Saudi Arabia was moving to a humanitarian phase of its Yemen campaign and "we need the Huthi and we need those that can influence them to make sure that they are prepared to try to move... to the negotiating table."

Yemen's influential former president urged his rebel allies Friday to heed U.N. demands to withdraw from territory seized in months of fighting, so Saudi-led air strikes can end and reconciliation begin.

Ali Abdullah Saleh, who still holds sway over army units allied with the Iran-backed Huthi rebels who now control large swathes of the country, had welcomed this month's Security Council resolution as a way to "stop bloodshed" in Yemen.

Syria's former political intelligence chief Rustom Ghazaleh has died, after being fired for a quarrel with another regime official in which he was beaten up, a source close to his family said Friday.

Ghazaleh, an ex-stalwart of President Bashar Assad's regime, had been in hospital since the dispute with another intelligence official early in March.

Actress Angelina Jolie on Friday criticized the U.N. Security Council's failure to end the war in Syria, as she appealed for urgent help for the growing ranks of Syrian refugees.

The Hollywood star spoke at the council in her role as special envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which has seen her visit camps hosting victims of the Syrian crisis 11 times.

Tunisian fishermen rescued a group of around 80 migrants Friday after their boat got into difficulties while trying to sail from Libya to Europe, the Red Crescent told AFP.

"The flow (of illegal immigrants) does not seem to be stopping," said Mongi Slim, head of the Red Crescent in the southeastern port of Zarzis near the North African country's border with violence-plagued Libya.

Iraq's health ministry does not have DNA test results from a close relative of Izzat al-Duri that could determine whether Saddam Hussein's long-fugitive deputy has been killed, a spokesman said Friday.

"The ministry does not have any DNA test (results) for any relative of Duri at the present time," ministry spokesman Dr Ziyad Tareq told AFP.

Iran summoned the Saudi envoy Friday to protest after his country's warplanes allegedly turned back humanitarian aid flights headed for war-torn Yemen, whose airspace is controlled by a Saudi-led coalition.

Aboard the flights were women and children who had been treated in Iran after being wounded in "terrorist" attacks before the coalition launched its air campaign against Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen last month, state news agency IRNA said.

Two Tunisian soldiers and 10 presumed jihadists have been killed in clashes in rugged terrain near the border with Algeria this week, the defense ministry said on Friday.

"Another two soldiers have been martyred and seven wounded in this army operation on Mount Salloum," spokesman Belhassen Oueslati told AFP.

The Islamic State shot down a regime aircraft near a key military airport in southern Syria Friday, with pro-IS Twitter accounts saying the jihadist group had captured the pilot, a monitor said.

The plane went down east of Khalkhalah airport, the only air base in Sweida province, a stronghold of the Druze minority that has largely avoided the bloodshed of Syria's war, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.