Bombs targeting Shiite mourners in Baghdad killed at least 57 people on Saturday, while 12 died in other attacks -- the latest in the worst violence to hit Iraq since 2008.

Despite major operations by security forces against militants and new restrictions on vehicles in the capital, Iraqi authorities have so far failed to curb the surge in unrest.

Tunisia's women's ministry said Saturday it would come up with a plan to counter the growing number of women travelling to Syria to wage so-called "sex jihad" by comforting militants.

"The ministry intends to boost its cooperation with both government and non-government bodies on this issue to come up with appropriate ways to thwart the plans of those who encourage such practices," a ministry statement said.

Yemeni authorities sent more soldiers to the coastal town of Balhaf Saturday, a day after an alleged al-Qaida plot to attack a key gas terminal was foiled, a security official said.

The thwarted attack came after three other simultaneous assaults killed scores of security personnel in the lawless southern al-Qaida stronghold of Shabwa province, where Balhaf is also located.

A Palestinian kidnapped and murdered an Israeli soldier hoping to exchange the body for his brother, jailed in the Jewish state since 2003, officials said on Saturday.

An army spokesman said the soldier "was kidnapped and killed by a Palestinian near Qalqiliya yesterday (Friday) and his body was found" on Saturday morning.

Mediators in Tunisia's protracted political crisis urged the ruling Islamist party on Saturday to fully accept their roadmap for the way forward, saying its response so far had been "ambiguous".

The Ennahda party had issued a statement on Friday saying it accepted the blueprint for the formation of a government of independents and a national dialogue to finalize a new constitution and clear the way for elections.

Syria has completed the handover of an inventory of its chemical arsenal by a Saturday deadline as part of a deal that headed off military strikes, the world's chemical weapons watchdog said.

The "OPCW has confirmed that it has received the expected disclosure from the Syrian government regarding its chemical weapons program," the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in an email received by Agence France Presse.

Russia may change its position on Syria if it sees any "cheating" by the regime, a senior Kremlin official said Saturday as Damascus disclosed details of its chemical stockpile in the first step of a disarmament plan.

"I am speaking theoretically and hypothetically, but if we become convinced that (Syrian President Bashar) Assad is cheating, we can change our position," the Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Syrian troops killed at least 15 people and recaptured villages in the central province of Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Saturday.

Official media reported that loyalist forces seized control of three villages in Hama province that had been in rebel hands, but did not mention casualties.

Syria's opposition National Coalition on Saturday rejected an Iranian offer to broker talks with the regime, saying the bid was "not serious" and calling Tehran "part of the problem."

"The Iranian initiative is not serious and lacks political credibility," the key opposition grouping said in a statement.

Iraq's Kurds voted Saturday in their first election in four years as their autonomous region grapples with disputes with Baghdad and fellow Kurds fight bloody battles in neighboring Syria.

The election for the region's parliament comes as turmoil roiling the Middle East has raised renewed questions about the political future of the Kurdish nation as a whole.