The Arab League said on Thursday it will submit to the U.N. Security Council a list of proposals for a June peace conference aimed at ending the conflict in Syria.

The pan-Arab body's Syria committee, which met in Cairo on Thursday, agreed on "several points to help the next international conference in Geneva succeed," it said in a statement without elaborating.

President Bashar Assad told a Tunisian delegation on Thursday he was determined to crush the rebellion against his regime and to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria, SANA news agency reported.

"Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis," Assad was quoted as telling the delegation, the official agency said.

The pro-opposition Friends of Syria meeting held in Amman has blocked the way for the international peace conference proposed by the United States and Russia, Syrian state news agency SANA said on Thursday.

"The participants, who have declared themselves spokesperson for the Syrian people, have blocked the way to the international conference (proposed by Moscow and Washington) by saying that they were going to boost support to the Syrian opposition," the agency said.

Attacks in Iraq on Thursday killed 11 people, including four soldiers, officials said, the latest in a wave of violence that has left 420 people dead so far this month.

Gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Taji, north of Baghdad, killing the four soldiers and wounding five others, security and medical officials said.

Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is a "priority," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on a visit to the region on Thursday, warning that time was running out for a two-state solution.

"The prospects of a two-state solution cannot be kept alive forever as the situation changes," he told reporters from the seat of the Palestinian presidency in the West Bank city Ramallah.

Prime Minister Ali Larayedh said on Thursday that Tunisia is making progress in its bid to dismantle "terrorist" cells despite the presence in the country of armed groups and recent clashes with Islamists.

"There is progress in dismantling the terrorist networks. We are confronted by small groups who practice terrorism and have links to terrorist parties," Larayedh told a news conference.

Syria's outgoing opposition chief published an initiative for his war-torn country on Thursday that would grant President Bashar Assad a safe exit, and urged dissident factions to adopt his plan.

Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib published his initiative on Facebook, as the main National Coalition he headed until March gathered in Istanbul to choose a new leader and discuss a U.S.-Russian peace initiative dubbed Geneva 2.

Tehran on Thursday denied a Bahraini claim it had found an Iranian drone in the sea near Saudi Arabia, and urged Manama to refrain from making "baseless accusations", the ISNA news agency reported.

It cited an unnamed foreign ministry source as denying Bahrain's assertion that the downed aircraft was Iranian.

A military court in the Gaza Strip has sentenced a Palestinian to death for collaborating with Israel and another to life with hard labor, the Hamas interior ministry said on Thursday.

The 43-year-old, identified only by his initials AH, "has been sentenced to capital punishment for acts of collaboration wit the occupation", a ministry statement said.

Gunmen shot dead four Iraqi soldiers on Thursday, security and medical officials said, the latest attacks in a wave of violence that has killed more than 410 people so far this month.

The gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Taji, north of Baghdad, killing the soldiers and wounding five others, the officials said.