A Jordanian military tribunal on Monday jailed nine Muslim extremists who were planning to go to neighboring Syria to fight for jihad, a court official said.

"Today, the state security court initially sentenced nine Salafist jihadist for five years' hard labor each. But it immediately reduced the sentences for six of them to two-and-a-half years' hard labor," the official told AFP.

Europe's Digital Agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes on Monday welcomed a pledge by Egypt to maintain an 'open' Internet that would not be subject to government shut downs, as was the case during the 2011 uprising.

Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, met Monday with Egypt's Telecommunications Minister Atef Helmy during a visit to Cairo.

The president of Libya's highest political body will resign on Tuesday after a law was passed banning those who served under the ousted regime of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi, an aide said on Monday.

Mohamed al-Megaryef "will on Tuesday evening submit his resignation before members of the General National Congress," the national assembly, one of his advisers told AFP on condition of anonymity.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay decried Monday the "horrific" level of rights violations in war-torn Syria, amid a flurry of diplomatic activity to organize a new summit in Geneva aimed at ending the conflict.

"A humanitarian, political and social disaster is already upon us, and what looms is truly a nightmare," Pillay told diplomats as she opened one of the U.N. Human Rights Council's four annual sessions in Geneva.

Syria's opposition urged Monday EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels to lift an arms embargo on the war-torn country, and to allow weapons to be channeled to rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime.

"I think it falls upon the EU to really make a decision. It's the moment of truth that we've been waiting for for months," said Khaled al-Saleh, spokesman for the main opposition National Coalition.

Kuwait's appeals court Monday quashed a five-year jail term given to opposition leader and former MP Mussallam al-Barrak last month for allegedly insulting the emir and ordered a retrial, a defense lawyer said.

"The (appeals) court declared the lower court verdict against Barrak illegal and cancelled it. It also agreed to call witnesses in the next hearing," Mohammad Abdulqader al-Jassem told Agence France Presse.

French newspaper Le Monde reported Monday that the Syrian army is using chemical weapons against rebel forces in the outskirts of Damascus, quoting two of its journalists who were in the area in April and May.

The journalists "witnessed over several consecutive days" the use of explosive chemical weapons and their effects on rebel fighters in the village of Jobar on the outskirts of the capital, reporter Jean-Philippe Remy wrote.

A reporter for Syrian state television has been killed while covering an army assault on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr, state media said on Monday.

"The ministry of information... announces that colleague Yara Abbas has been added to the ranks of the martyrs, killed by terrorists near Dabaa airport," north of Qusayr, state media said.

A top Bahraini court upheld a 15-year jail term for 14 Shiites on Monday after they were convicted of killing a Pakistani in Manama during the 2011 uprising, a judicial source said.

The Court of Cassation announced its verdict in the presence of 12 of the accused, the source said, adding that the remaining two had been tried in absentia.

Hani Hussein, oil minister in OPEC member Kuwait, has resigned apparently to avoid being questioned in parliament over a $2.2-billion penalty payment to U.S. Dow Chemical and other alleged irregularities, a newspaper reported Monday.

Hussein told Al-Qabas daily he hopes "the new oil minister will provide the political cover for the massive change" introduced to the oil sector last week.