U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend the next "Friends of Syria" talks in Turkey, an official said Thursday, amid efforts to end the Syrian regime's bloody year-old crackdown.

Clinton will join the April 1 talks in Istanbul after she took part in the first such meeting in Tunis last month that drew 60 countries, including Turkey, Arab states and western powers, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday slammed as "hypocritical" a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution, which ordered a first probe into Israeli settlements.

"This council has an automatic majority hostile to Israel and is hypocritical," Netanyahu was quoted as saying in a statement released by his office.

Claims by Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president that his bodyguard was tortured while in custody were denied on Thursday by authorities, who insisted he died of kidney failure.

Amir Sarbut Zaidan al-Batawi died earlier this month and his body was handed over to his family, with Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, wanted by Baghdad on terror charges, releasing photographs he said showed the 33-year-old married father-of-three was tortured.

Thirty-seven people, most of them suspected al-Qaida fighters, were killed over the past 48 hours in violence across Yemen's restive south, local and military officials said Thursday.

"The bodies of 29 al-Qaida militants were killed in (army) shelling" on their hideouts north and northeast of the southern city of Zinjibar, and buried in the nearby town of Jaar, a local official said.

An international action plan is needed to stop the "human tragedy" in Syria, Turkey's foreign minister said Thursday after a U.N. Security Council statement calling for all sides to end violence.

"In addition to a common message we also have to develop a joint plan of action," Ahmet Davutoglu said after talks in Vienna with his Austrian counterpart ahead of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels that he will attend.

Libya's new rulers, under pressure from human rights groups, have vowed to put on trial Moammar Gadhafi's former spy chief before June elections if Mauritania extradites him as expected.

Fathi Baaja of the National Transitional Council said that trials of Gadhafi loyalists have so far lagged in Libya due to inadequate prison infrastructure and a paralyzed judiciary.

Syria's main opposition group on Thursday said a U.N. statement calling for all parties to end violence in Syria will simply give the regime more time to continue killing its own people.

"Such statements, issued amid continued killings, offer the regime the opportunity to push ahead with its repression in order to crush the revolt by the Syrian people," said Samir Nashar, member of the executive committee of the Syrian National Council.

Saudi authorities have banned prominent rights activist Waleed Abu Alkhair from travelling to the United States where he was to attend a forum organized by the U.S. State Department, he told Agence France Presse.

"Public prosecutors have issued an order banning me from travel for security reasons, two days before I must head to Washington to take part" in the forum, Alkhair said late on Wednesday.

The rebel Free Syrian Army has set up a military council to coordinate operations around Damascus, as it brings the year-old conflict to the capital, it announced in an online video on Thursday.

"I, Colonel Khaled Mohammed al-Hammoud, announce the creation of the military council for Damascus and the region that will be in charge of FSA operations in this region," an army deserter said in the video.

Israel and the U.S. disagree on what would be a realistic timetable for stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Israel's defense minister said Thursday, but stopped short of threatening unilateral Israeli action.

Ehud Barak reiterated concerns that Iran is trying to make its suspected nuclear weapons program immune from attack before taking a decision on assembling atomic bombs.