Three farmers were among nine people killed in attacks in Iraq on Thursday, police and doctors said, as the country struggles to curb its worst violence since 2008.

A magnetic "sticky bomb" killed a man and his wife, both farmers, in the Dujail area as they drove to work, while another farmer was shot dead by gunmen near Balad, officials said.

At least 29 people have been killed in fighting between Kurdish and jihadist fighters in northern Syria in the past two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday.

"At least 19 Al-Nusra Front (jihadist) fighters and 10 Kurds have been killed since the day before yesterday in clashes in the oil region of Hasakeh," the NGO said.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood slammed the EU's failure to denounce the military coup that ousted president Mohammed Morsi, after the bloc's foreign policy chief met Islamist officials and called for his release.

Catherine Ashton met senior pro-Morsi figures during her visit to Cairo on Wednesday, including former premier Hisham Qandil and representatives from the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing.

Israeli President Shimon Peres urged the EU on Thursday to delay stopping funding of projects involving settlements in the occupied territories as Palestinians and Israelis inch toward fresh peace talks.

"The coming days are critical," his office quoted him as saying. "Wait with your decision, give priority to peace."

The Israeli military is preparing to lift some restrictions on Palestinian movement in advance of possible renewed peace talks, army radio said on Thursday.

"It appears that in the next few days the future of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will be determined," its reporter for the Palestinian territories reported.

A bombing outside a mosque near the royal palaces has rattled Bahrain, prompting authorities and main opposition groups in the violence-wracked Gulf kingdom to denounce the attack.

No one was injured in the blast, which struck late Wednesday in the mosque parking lot during evening prayers. But it was a rare explosion near the site of the royal residences, pointing to widening attacks by militant factions as part of the 29-month unrest.

Britain's outgoing army chief has warned that attempts to impose a no-fly zone over Syria would be unsuccessful without establishing ground control, in an interview published in Thursday's Daily Telegraph.

Britain is at the forefront of international efforts to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad, and has promised to supply rebels with equipment to protect them against chemical weapons attacks.

Gunmen shot dead a policeman on Wednesday in El-Arish, in Egypt's restive Sinai peninsula, medical sources said.

The militants opened fire on the police conscript who was standing outside a police station in north Sinai's main town, hitting him in the neck before fleeing in their vehicle.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Washington on Wednesday that EU moves to end dealings with Jewish settlements were harming its peace talks drive, an Israeli official said.

In a telephone call with Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in neighboring Jordan on his latest bid to revive direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Netanyahu warned that the EU was "damaging efforts to restart the talks."

A top Israeli law officer said on Wednesday that a culture of impunity reigns among Israeli bodies operating in the occupied territories, who fail to heed even their own rules.

The report was swiftly seized on by Israeli human rights groups and campaigners against expansion of the settlements as evidence of what they say is an "intolerable situation".