Suspected al-Qaida gunmen killed a Yemeni intelligence officer by cutting his throat after kidnapping him at Mukalla, capital of the southeastern Hadramawt province, a police official told Agence France Presse.

"Commander Faraj Saeed al-Odsani was snatched (Wednesday) afternoon from a road near Mukalla airport by al-Qaida gunmen who drove him towards the nearby province of Shabwa," an al-Qaida stronghold, the official said.

Syrian army troops rained shells on the Homs district of Khaldiyeh on Wednesday and killed at least 70 people across the country, activists said.

"Khaldiyeh is being bombed, with shells and rockets, for a second day," Hadi Abdullah of the Syrian Revolution General Commission told Agence France Presse, reached by telephone from Beirut.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday praised the U.N. statement on Syria and warned President Bashar al-Assad to carry out the peace plan or face "increasing pressure."

Clinton said that the long-divided U.N. Security Council has taken "a positive step" after it adopted a statement demanding that Syria immediately implement a peace plan proposed by former secretary general Kofi Annan.

Thousands of Syrian Kurds held demonstrations in northern Syria on Wednesday to mark the Kurdish New Year, as seen in videos posted online by anti-regime activists.

In the main northern city of Aleppo, demonstrators waving Kurdish flags shouted slogans such as "Azadi", meaning freedom in the Kurds' Kurmanji language, and "Our Syrian revolution is for justice, dignity and freedom."

The electric fuse connects to the battery, Abu Suleiman shouts "Allahu Akbar!" and the gas canister explodes, tearing up the road just a few kilometers (miles) from a Syrian army position.

For the rebel chief, whose men control a mountainous region of northern Syria, preventing the army from using this route near the Turkish border is a matter of life or death.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday adopted a presidential statement demanding that Syria "immediately" implement a peace plan proposed by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan and giving a veiled warning of international measures.

The statement, which has less weight than a formal resolution, says the Council will "consider further steps as appropriate" if Annan reports that the Damascus government is not cooperating.

Libya said Wednesday Mauritania had agreed to hand over Moammar Gadhafi’s former spy chief for trial on home soil, turning down rival extradition requests from France and a war crimes court.

"We have obtained an agreement from Mauritania to deliver (Abdullah) Senussi to Libya where he will receive a fair trial. No date has been decided upon but it will be very soon," government spokesman Nasser al-Manaa said.

Extremists must stop using the Palestinian cause to justify their acts of violence, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Wednesday after a deadly attack on a French Jewish school.

"It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life," the Palestinian premier said in a statement.

Japan's foreign ministry on Wednesday said it would close its embassy in Syria, citing deteriorating security conditions amid a brutal crackdown on anti-government protestors.

"We have decided to temporarily close the Japanese embassy in Syria as of today due to worsening public safety conditions in Syria, including the capital Damascus," a ministry statement said.

Iraq's security forces locked down key routes in Baghdad on Wednesday after the country suffered its deadliest violence in two months in the run-up to a landmark Arab summit due next week.

The measures came a day after a wave of nationwide gun and bomb attacks killed 50 people and left 255 others wounded on the anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.