The U.N.'s human rights office Friday raised the alarm over a looming Syrian government offensive on the opposition-held town of Yabroud, saying it feared civilians would bear the brunt.

"We are deeply concerned that the attack on Yabroud may follow the pattern of previous attacks on cities and towns across Syria," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appeared to further set the stage this week for a presidential bid when he traveled to Russia, where President Vladimir Putin endorsed him as leader-in-waiting.

It was Sisi's first trip abroad since he overthrew Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July, setting off months of deadly unrest.

Niger on Friday handed over to Libya slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi's former chief of internal security Abdullah Mansur, the Libyan government announced.

A government statement said Tripoli had given the authorities in Niamey evidence implicating Mansur "in planning terrorist acts aimed at destabilizing Libya".

A car bombing outside a mosque in southern Syria killed dozens of people Friday and rebels detonated mines under a hotel in the north, killing five soldiers, monitors said.

At least 33 people, including 12 rebel fighters, were killed when the car blew up in front of the mosque in the rebel-held village of Yaduda in the southern Daraa province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Libya's government and armed forces on Friday moved to quash rumors of an impending coup after a retired general called for parliament and the government to be suspended.

In a video posted on the Internet, Khalifa Haftar announced an "initiative" under which the interim authorities would be suspended.

Security forces clashed with Shiite protesters who tried to march towards the Bahraini capital's symbolic Pearl Square on Friday to mark the third anniversary of an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, witnesses said.

Protesters, who gathered in several Shiite villages to walk towards Pearl Square, where demonstrators camped out for a month in early 2011 before being violently dispersed by troops, were met with tear gas and bird shot, the witnesses said.

The global chemical arms watchdog said Friday it has chosen two U.S. and Finnish companies to help destroy Syria's chemical arsenal as part of an ambitious plan that has suffered a string of setbacks.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said Finland's Ekokem would destroy chemical weapon ingredients as well as some effluent left over from destruction activities aboard a U.S. ship.

Iraqi forces fought on Friday to retake part of a northern town and nearby areas seized by gunmen, the latest instance of authorities losing ground to militants, an official said.

The Thursday takeover of part of Sulaiman Bek and nearby villages in Salaheddin province came as gunmen control all of one major city and part of another in the western province of Anbar, in a stand-off that has lasted for weeks.

Yemeni security forces were on Friday hunting down 29 inmates, including 19 suspected al-Qaida members, who broke out of jail in a deadly assault in the capital.

The official Saba news agency cited an interior ministry statement as saying 29 people convicted "of various terrorist and criminal charges" escaped when a blast breached the facility's outer wall on Thursday.

Russia and Egypt are nearing a $3-billion arms purchase agreement that will be financed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a Moscow newspaper reported on Friday.

The two sides have already either "initialed or signed" contracts for Egypt's purchase of Mig-29 fighters, air and coastal defense systems, Mi-35 attack helicopters and smaller arms, the Vedomosti daily quoted two Russian government sources as saying.