DUBAI (Reuters) – The increasingly bloody crisis engulfing Syria has started to go international.

A French initiative in the U.N. Security Council to secure condemnation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s repression of protesters is just one symptom of growing world alarm.

DUBAI (Reuters) – The increasingly bloody crisis engulfing Syria has started to go international.

A French initiative in the U.N. Security Council to secure condemnation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s repression of protesters is just one symptom of growing world alarm.

SANAA (Reuters) – To his U.S., British and Gulf mediators and benefactors, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh says he is ready for a peaceful exit from power.

To his close circle of aides he sneers at a Western-backed agreement to end his 33-year reign.

SANAA/TAIZ (Reuters) – Four Yemeni soldiers were killed in what appeared to be an ambush near an al Qaeda-held southern city after renewed protests in another city were met with deadly force, stoking concern about civil war.

A brief weekend calm was shattered on Sunday when forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire on protesters in Taiz, killing at least six people and wounding 120, hospital sources said.

SANAA/TAIZ (Reuters) – Yemeni forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire on protesters in the southern city of Taiz on Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding 120, hospital sources said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said police fired live ammunition, tear gas and used water cannons to disperse demonstrators protesting outside a municipal building to demand the release of a fellow protester who was arrested on Saturday.

SANAA/TAIZ (Reuters) – Yemeni forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire on protesters in the southern city of Taiz on Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding 120, hospital sources said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said police fired live ammunition, tear gas and used water cannons to disperse demonstrators protesting outside a municipal building to demand the release of a fellow protester who was arrested on Saturday.

SANAA (Reuters) – A breakaway military group called on Sunday for other army units to join them in the fight to bring down Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, piling pressure on him to end his three-decade rule over the destitute country.

Opposition leaders separately accused Saleh of allowing the city of Zinjibar, on the Gulf of Aden, to fall to al Qaeda and Islamists militants in order to raise alarm in the region that would in turn translate to support for the president.

SANAA (Reuters) – An al Qaeda group tightened its grip on a Yemeni coastal town while in the capital Sanaa a truce was holding on Sunday between President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s forces and armed rebels, hours after it was agreed.

Armed men believed to be from al Qaeda appeared to have full control of the coastal city of Zinjibar in the flashpoint province of Abyan.

SANAA (Reuters) – A sense of calm returned to Yemen’s embattled capital on Sunday hours after armed tribesman and President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s forces reached a truce to halt clashes threatening to plunge the state into civil war.

Pedestrians and cars returned to Sanaa streets where pitched battles in nearly a week of fighting killed at least 115 and raised global worries over the impoverished country perched next to a crucial shipping lane through which about 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemen’s government and armed tribesmen demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh leave power agreed on Saturday to end their confrontation which had brought the poor Arabian Peninsula country to the brink of civil war.

The deal included a withdrawal of armed tribesmen from government buildings and moves to normalise life in the Hasaba district of the capital Sanaa, scene of a week-long clashes that killed 115 people, a source close to mediators told Reuters.