Yemen’s embattled president accepted an offer from the Saudi monarch to seek treatment in his kingdom after being wounded in a rocket attack, raising the possibility today that he could leave the country after nearly four months of mass protests seeking to end his 33-year rule.

A government crackdown on two Syrian towns in the country’s centre and south killed at least 33 people, including an 11-year-old girl shot dead by troops during a fierce shelling, activists have said.

SYRIAN government troops backed by tanks yesterday attacked two central towns that have seen intense protests against President Bashar Assad’s regime, while security forces opened fire at demonstrators in several parts of the country causing casualties, activists said.

Iranian-supporting Hezbollah’s choice for Lebanon’s next prime minister won parliamentary support today, capping the group’s steady rise in power and sparking street riots by opponents.

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has threatened to kill any captured Americans if the US executes the mastermind behind September 11.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship, a new US accusation in the midst of rising tensions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and crackdown on anti-government protesters.

FROM a hideout in Gaza, the head of the Hamas government called for reconciliation between bitterly divided Palestinian factions and expressed hope for better relations with the US.

Gazans were driving into Egypt for the first time in large numbers today, after Hamas militants with bulldozers cleared a path for vehicles at the breached border.

The son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi admitted in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV that the Bulgarian medics jailed on charges of infecting children with HIV-Aids were tortured during captivity, the pan-Arab network said on its website today.

A TV cameraman jailed at Guantanamo Bay has appealed for the release of a BBC journalist kidnapped in Gaza, saying his own detention by the US military “is not a lesson that Muslims should copy.”

Pakistan has arrested former Taliban defence minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, regarded as a top figure in the Afghan insurgency, a Pakistani intelligence official said.

Fatah and Hamas gunmen battled each other at universities, a radio station and in streets across the Gaza Strip today with 17 people – including four children - dying before the factions’ leaders announced a cease-fire agreement.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said today he would not rule out new unity-government talks with Hamas, despite more than a week of factional violence between his Fatah party and the Islamic militant group.

A close aide to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki today sought to play down the significance of any threat to reduce American economic or military support for the Iraqi government as a high-level US commission said American policy in Iraq must change.

Iraq’s president rejected suggestions that an international conference be held to address the violence wracking his country, echoing sentiments expressed by other leading politicians.

One of two British soldiers killed by insurgents in Iraq three years ago was still alive nearly four hours after his convoy was ambushed, an inquest heard today.

An Arab television station has broadcast previously unseen footage of a smiling Osama bin Laden meeting the top planners of the September 11 attacks in an Afghan mountain camp and calling on followers to pray for the hijackers as they carried out the suicide mission.

Israeli missiles struck a southern Lebanese village today killing about 50 civilians – half of them children – when the building they sought refuge in collapsed.

Up to 50 people were killed today – more than half of them children – when Israeli missiles struck a southern Lebanese village early today, flattening houses on top of sleeping residents.

The leaders of Jordan and Egypt held an emergency meeting in Cairo today as thousands demonstrated across the Arab world against Israel’s expanding assault on Lebanon – the worst Israeli attack on its neighbour in 24 years.

Masked Shiite gunmen went on a rampage in western Baghdad today, pulling Sunni Arabs from cars and off the street and killing at least 41 people, police said.

THE US government dispatched its top two foreign policy officials to Iraq yesterday in a dramatic show of support for the country’s emerging government.

Coalition forces backed by a helicopter and jets attacked a safe house being used by suspected foreign insurgents in Iraq, killing 12 militants and a woman, the US military said today.

The family of American journalist Jill Carroll issued another public appeal for her release today, a week before a deadline set by her Iraqi kidnappers for their demands to be met or they will kill her.

Iraq has asked US authorities to release six of the eight Iraqi women in military custody, but not as part of a bid to free a kidnapped American female journalist, a government official said today.

Insurgents today killed 19 Iraqi soldiers and wounded four others in a co-ordinated ambush northeast of Baghdad just two days after the deadliest attack against United States Marines in four months.

Riot police barred Egyptian voters from the polls today as knife and gun clashes between supporters of Islamist and secular political parties marred runoff parliamentary elections.

The shadow of al-Qaida fell across Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden’s top deputy called the country’s landmark elections a farce, and the US military commander here warned of more Taliban rebel attacks.

Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri has claimed directly that his terror network was “honoured” to have carried out the London bombings which killed 52 innocent people.

The al-Qaida terror group’s second in command tonight praised the four London suicide bombings which killed 52 innocent people on July 7, saying the mass killings exposed Western “hypocrisy”.

An explosion was heard in Jordan’s port of Aqaba near a facility used by US military vessels, an official and Arab satellite TV stations said, but the cause of the blast was unclear.

THIS editorial, from yesterday’s New York Post, defends the marine who shot dead a wounded Iraqi:

AN audio tape purportedly released by Osama bin Laden’s deputy calls for attacks on US and British interests everywhere, according to comments aired by Al-Jazeera TV yeterday.

An audio tape purportedly released by Osama bin Laden’s deputy calls for attacks on US and British interests everywhere, according to comments aired by Al-Jazeera TV today.

Mujahedeen, or holy fighters, have taken control of much of Afghanistan and driven US forces into the “trenches”, according to a tape By Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, aired on Al-Jazeera TV tonight.

An Iraqi militant group says it has captured four Jordanian truck drivers who it claims were delivering items for US forces in Iraq, according to a tape obtained by Al-Jazeera TV.

Iraqi militants have threatened to behead a Turkish lorry driver if his employers and the Kuwaiti contractor they work for don’t cease operations in Iraq within 48 hours, according to a video tape broadcast on the Al-Arabiya television station today.

REBEL forces inside the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf were warned yesterday they have “hours to surrender” or face attack from US and Iraqi forces.

Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terrorist group says it has kidnapped two Turkish truck drivers and will kill them in 48 hours if their company does not stop working in Iraq, according to a new videotape broadcast today on Al-Jazeera TV.

An Iraqi militant group says it has taken hostage two Pakistanis and an Iraqi driver employed by US forces, a video released by Al-Jazeera TV said.

US AIRCRAFT and tanks pounded the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah last night as a series of blasts rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus.

A man who worked as Saddam Hussein’s translator for 15 years defended his former boss today as “gentle,” and suggested the strongman was a victim of biased reporting.

Two huge explosions have been heard in central Baghdad.

A NEPALESE Gurkha security man and an unidentified Iraqi protester were killed in riot-swept Basra yesterday, and an American soldier died of heatstroke as temperatures crept higher than 120 degrees.