Syrian government troops committed war crimes when they dropped bombs and fired artillery at or near at least 10 bakeries in Aleppo province over the past three weeks, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

"The attacks are at least recklessly indiscriminate and the pattern and number of attacks suggest that government forces have been targeting civilians. Both reckless indiscriminate attacks and deliberately targeting civilians are war crimes," the New York-based watchdog said.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday said he expected the Egyptian army to withdraw its reinforcements from the Sinai Peninsula at the end of its operation to root out Islamist militants.

"They must act against terror and if they have to bring in troops, let them do so. And when it ends, they must take them out," Barak said in an interview with Israel's army radio.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday reprimanded Iran for "outrageous" comments denying the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist, and called on the two arch-nemeses to drop threats against each other.

"I strongly reject any threat by any (U.N.) member state to destroy another, or outrageous comments to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust," Ban said in a speech before a Non-Aligned summit in Tehran.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi of using his speech at the Non-Aligned summit in Tehran on Thursday to incite further bloodshed in Syria.

Morsi's speech condemning the regime in Damascus, prompting a walkout by the Syrian delegation, amounted to "interference in Syria's internal affairs and ... incites continued bloodshed in Syria," Muallem said, quoted on state television.

Syrian rebels shot down a MiG fighter jet near a military airport in the northwest province of Idlib on Thursday, the Free Syrian Army chief of the province told Agence France Presse.

"I can confirm that a MiG was shot down this morning by our men using automatic weapons, shortly after taking off from Abu Zohur military airport in Idlib province. The two pilots who parachuted from the plane were captured," said Colonel Afif Mahmoud Suleiman, head of the Military Council in Idlib.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi agrees that there can be no political solution for Syria unless President Bashar Assad leaves power, the French presidency said Wednesday.

In a statement issued following a telephone conversation between Morsi and French President Francois Hollande, the Elysee said: "The two heads of state mainly raised the situation in Syria and observed that no political solution is possible without the departure of Bashar Assad."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday slammed the wide international participation at a Non-Aligned summit in Tehran as a "stain on humanity" following Iran's denial of Israel's right to exist.

"Today, over 120 countries are in Tehran, saluting a regime that not only denies the Holocaust but pledges to annihilate the Jewish state, brutalizes its own people, colludes in the murder of thousands of innocent Syrians and leads millions in chanting 'Death to America, death to Israel'," he said.

Turkey said Wednesday it will allow Turkish lawmakers to visit a refugee camp set up for Syrian army defectors in a bid to quash rumors that the camp morphed into an underground rebel training base.

"We are working on allowing access into all (refugee settlements), including Apaydin camp, for members of a relevant parliamentary commission," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in televised remarks.

Three shopkeepers seated in front of their shops in the center of the Syrian capital remain engrossed in their conversation, oblivious to three strong explosions nearby.

Thousands of motorists speed away towards the south of the city, passing three army tanks whose barrels point at Nahr Aisha district which bears the scars of a fierce battle.

Former premier Ahmed Shafiq, who left Egypt amid a corruption probe after losing to Mohammed Morsi in a bitterly fought presidential election, has been placed on a watchlist and given a travel ban, judicial sources said on Wednesday.

Shafiq, a former air force chief appointed prime minister by president Hosni Mubarak before his overthrow early last year, is under investigation for an allegedly illegal sale of state land to Mubarak's sons.