The suicide bombings which struck Damascus Friday killing 40 people must not hamper the Arab League monitoring mission in Syria, a U.S. official said Friday, condemning the attacks.

"It is crucial that today's attack not impede the critical work of the Arab League monitoring mission to document and deter human rights abuses with the goal of protecting civilians," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Loyalists of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Friday attacked demonstrators gathered south of the capital calling for the leader's trial, a protest organizer told Agence France Presse.

Further south, in Abyan province, seven soldiers were killed late Thursday near Zinjibar in an ambush by al-Qaida suspects, a military source said, adding three militants were also killed in subsequent fighting.

Jordanian police on Friday fired tear gas to break up clashes between pro-reform Islamist demonstrators and government loyalists in the northern city of Mafraq.

"Police had to fire tear gas after around 300 Islamists clashed with thousands of members of the Bani Hassan tribe," police spokesman Mohammed Khatib told Agence France Presse.

Hundreds of stateless Arabs living in Kuwait demonstrated for the second week in a row demanding citizenship and other rights, Agence France Presse reported.

Kuwaiti activists, former MPs and representatives from the Kuwait Association for Human Rights attended the rally in Jahra, northwest of Kuwait City, as police watched without interfering.

Syrian security forces on Friday killed at least 14 civilians, a human rights group said, as protesters took to the streets across the country under the slogan "Protocol of death, a license to kill," in reference to the protocol recently signed between Syria and the Arab League on sending observers to the country.

Three people were killed in Daraa province, south of the capital, cradle of the protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by Agence France Presse.

Nine months of unrest in Syria have stripped Bab Tuma, the oldest Christian quarter of Damascus, of any sign of Christmas joy. No decorations or lights adorn the streets and season’s greetings are exchanged with a heavy heart.

"Christians have decided to cancel celebrations and only observe Christmas mass which will be dedicated to peace in Syria," Greek Catholic Archbishop Elias al-Dabii told Agence France Presse.

Planned crisis talks set for Friday between Iraqi political leaders after deadly attacks in Baghdad were cancelled, an official said, after the two main parliamentary blocs refused to meet.

The meeting had been called in an effort to resolve a worsening political row between the Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's National Alliance and the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, the latter of which is boycotting the cabinet and parliament.

Suicide bombers hit two security service bases in Damascus on Friday, killing at least 40 people, in attacks the regime blamed on al-Qaida but which the opposition said were the work of the regime itself.

The bombings, which officials blamed on al-Qaida, were the first attacks against Syria's powerful security services in the heart of the capital since the uprising began and overshadowed new protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

German's foreign ministry said Thursday it had summoned Syria's ambassador to Berlin to demand an immediate halt to the "brutal" repression of anti-regime demonstrators by government forces.

"The brutal acts by the security forces against the Syrian population are absolutely unacceptable and a flagrant violation of Syria's agreement with the Arab League," said Boris Ruge, in charge of Middle East affairs at the foreign ministry.

A wave of attacks across Iraq killed 67 people Thursday as it faced a political crisis, with its vice president accused of running death squads and the premier warning he could break off power-sharing.

Apparently coordinated blasts in the capital and the slaughter of a family of five in restive Diyala province were the first major sign of violence in a row that has threatened Iraq's fragile political truce and heightened sectarian tensions just days after U.S. forces completed their withdrawal.