Human Rights Watch on Thursday condemned abuses by all sides in a days-long standoff in Iraq's Anbar province which has left more than 250 people dead and displaced 13,000 families.

"Apparently unlawful methods of fighting by all sides have caused civilian casualties and severe property damage," the New York-based rights group said in a statement.

Vice President Joe Biden called Nuri al-Maliki for the second time this week as U.S. pressure mounted on the Iraqi premier over an al-Qaida surge in the violence-plagued country.

Biden urged Maliki on Wednesday to "continue the Iraqi government's outreach to local, tribal, and national leaders," following the loss of Fallujah to Islamist insurgents, the White House said in a statement.

Russia on Wednesday blocked a British-drafted U.N. Security Council statement condemning the Syrian government attacks on the city of Aleppo, diplomats said.

It was the second time in a month that Russia objected to a western bid to slam President Bashar Assad's air assault against Syria's biggest city that has killed hundreds since December 15.

The June deadline to destroy Syria's chemical arms can still be met despite delays moving the most dangerous chemicals, the head of the U.N. mission monitoring the operation said Wednesday.

Sigrid Kaag, head of the U.N.-Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons joint mission, expressed guarded optimism after the first chemicals were loaded onto a ship in the Syrian port of Latakia on Tuesday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Wednesday he backed Iranian involvement in a conference in Switzerland this month on ending the brutal nearly three-year-old war in Syria.

"My position is that we should try to include the neighbors -- Iran too," he said after talks in Berlin with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt.

Video footage posted online Wednesday shows nine bodies of prisoners, blindfolded and hands bound, in pools of blood allegedly executed by al-Qaida-linked militants in northern Syria, activists said.

The footage, posted by Shahba Press, a network of activists in the region, shows the nine men were all shot in the head.

Gunmen attacked a military site north of the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, killing 12 soldiers and wounding four, police and a doctor said.

The militants stormed a building at the site in the Al-Adhim area, then bombed it.

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said Wednesday he would soon announce a major cabinet reshuffle, after calls in the assembly for a vote of no confidence in his government.

"There will be a large ministerial reshuffle next week or the week after," Zeidan said at a news conference.

Pope Francis's visit to the Middle East in May will inevitably have a "political dimension" and there are high expectations also among the Muslim population, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem said on Wednesday.

Fouad Twal said in an interview with I.Media, a news agency specialized in Vatican affairs, that he hoped the visit would also help develop closer relations between local Catholic and Orthodox communities.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas briefed Jordanian King Abdullah II Wednesday on Middle East peace negotiations, after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry failed to find a framework deal for final talks.

"The meeting with his majesty focused on exchanging views about unifying the Jordanian-Palestinian position on... Kerry's initiative," the palace quoted Abbas as saying after a meeting with the king, whose country has a peace treaty with Israel.