Kuwait's ruler on Wednesday appointed Defense Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak al-Sabah as the new prime minister of the oil-rich Gulf state, state-run Kuwait Television announced.

"An emiri decree was issued appointing Sheikh Jaber Mubarak al-Sabah as prime minister," the report said.

The embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday pressed on with a deadly crackdown on dissent.

Activists reported that 11 civilians were killed by Syrian forces in the flashpoint provinces of Idlib and Homs, while in the southern Daraa province, cradle of eight months of anti-regime unrest, a blast killed seven security forces.

An Arab League committee met on Wednesday to decide on a list of Syrian officials who will be banned from Arab countries and whose bank accounts will be frozen, a league official said.

The committee met in the Arab League's Cairo headquarters to press ahead with sanctions against Damascus over a bloody crackdown on protesters who want the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

Forces loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh shelled several neighborhoods across the flashpoint city of Taez, killing one person, medics and residents said Wednesday.

"One person was killed and three others were wounded" in the shelling on Tuesday night, said a medical official.

Israel is to resume transferring millions of dollars in customs duties to the Palestinian Authority, public radio said Wednesday, but the prime minister's office said no decision had yet been taken.

Public radio reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's so-called Forum of Eight senior ministers had voted in favor of resuming the transfers, nearly a month after it froze them over Palestine's admission to UNESCO.

The U.N. Human Rights Council will hold a special session on the situation in Syria on Friday following a request by the European Union, a diplomatic source said.

"There will be a special session of the Council on the human rights situation in Syria on Friday," the European diplomat told Agence France Presse, adding that 28 countries had signed the call for the extraordinary session, the third this year.

Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday claimed the lead in phase one of the country's first parliamentary elections since veteran president Hosni Mubarak's fall.

The movement's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) said initial results showed its coalition ahead, followed by parties belonging to hardline Islamist Salafi movements, then a coalition of secular movements in third.

Kuwaiti Defense Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak al-Sabah is expected to be named the new prime minister on Wednesday before parliament is likely to be dissolved, a lawmaker said.

"Sheikh Jaber is expected to be named by the leadership to be the next prime minister and lead what is likely to be a transitional government to oversee the election," opposition Islamist MP Falah al-Sawwagh told Agence France Presse.

Turkey on Wednesday slapped economic sanctions on the Syrian regime, freezing assets of Syrians involved in the government's crackdown on protesters, suspending ties with Syria's Central Bank and banning all military sales.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference that Syrian President Bashar Assad has wrongly ignored calls from the international community to stop its bloody crackdown on protesters.

The United States and Iraq are embarking on a new phase in their relationship despite the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the country next month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in Baghdad Wednesday.

"Our troops... are leaving Iraq and we are embarking on a new path together, a new phase in this relationship... between two sovereign nations," Biden said at the opening of a meeting of the U.S.-Iraq Higher Coordinating Committee.