Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie urged the international community to boost aid to Syrian refugees hit by what she called "the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century," a UNHCR statement said Wednesday.

Jolie, who is UNHCR special envoy for refugee affairs, visited the Jordan-Syria border overnight accompanied by head of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

An explosion at a military depot outside Syria's coastal city of Latakia left six people lightly injured on Wednesday, state television said.

State TV said a "technical error" caused the explosion at a base used by the army corps of engineers. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a number of activists on the ground, said it did not know the cause of the explosion in what it described as an ammunition warehouse. It said 13 people were injured, including some in critical condition.

A suicide bombing in northern Iraq on Wednesday killed the leader of a provincial political party and four relatives, officials said, on the eve of elections his bloc was to participate in.

Yunus al-Ramah, head of the United Iraq party, had been hosting a social gathering at his home in the town of Al-Hadhr, in Nineveh province, when the attack took place, according to security and medical officials.

Syria's main opposition bloc said Wednesday it will fight on to topple President Bashar Assad, and that any political solution to the conflict must lead to the fall of the regime.

The National Coalition's statement comes after G8 leaders said they were "committed to achieving a political solution" to the Syrian conflict.

Time is running out for the Middle East peace process, which must move forward or face total failure, former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday.

"The window of opportunity will be open for only a short space of time," he said, speaking in Jerusalem at the 2013 Presidential Conference, hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres.

A suicide attack on Wednesday rocked a local market in Yemen's mainly-Shiite city of Saada killing two civilians, a Zaidi Ansarullah rebel told Agence France Presse.

The attacker detonated a bomb-laden motorbike in the middle of the market, said the rebel, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The blast left another 11 people critically wounded, he added.

Fiji has offered more than 500 troops to the U.N. Golan Heights peacekeeping force after several countries withdrew because of the spillover from the Syria conflict, diplomats said Tuesday.

Fiji will supply 170 troops this month to replace Japanese and Croatian soldiers who have left in previous weeks. Diplomats said it has also offered to replace the 370 troops that Austria is withdrawing.

Jordan's King Abdullah II has endorsed a treaty with Britain expected to pave the way for the extradition of radical cleric Abu Qatada who has resisted deportation for the past decade, official Petra news agency reported Tuesday.

Petra said the king issued a royal decree "endorsing the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between Jordan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday that Iranian president-elect Hassan Rowhani would be welcome at Syria peace talks "if he can be useful".

"Let's wait for the new president's statements," Hollande said at the end of a G8 summit, adding: "My position is that if he can be useful, yes, he would be welcome" at a peace conference mooted for later this year in Geneva.

Six people belonging to Tunisia's hardline Salafist movement have each been handed five year jail sentences for torching an important Sufi shrine, the country's Sufi union said on Tuesday.

"It's the first time such a sentence has been pronounced. It shows that the law can be applied in Tunisia when the political will exists," Mohamed El Heni, one of the union's leaders, told Agence France Presse.