Talks between president Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah, and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal on a new Palestinian cabinet have been postponed, a Fatah official said on Sunday.

The two senior political figures were due to meet in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss the make-up of an interim government of independents called for by a unity deal that rival factions Hamas and Fatah signed in Egypt last month.

Twelve suspected members of an al-Qaida-linked group and two Yemeni soldiers were killed in clashes near the gunmen-held southern city Zinjibar, an army officer said on Sunday.

"Twelve of the Ansar al-Sharia (Supporters of Islamic Sharia Law) terrorists were killed and three wounded after Artillery Brigade 119 targeted a group planting explosive devices on the main road," the field officer told Agence France Presse.

Egypt's premier has said that delaying a parliamentary election scheduled for September would give political parties more time to prepare, state media said Sunday, amid fears an early poll would benefit Islamists.

"Postponing the election would give the chance for a larger number of new political parties to develop," the state-owned Al-Ahram quoted Essam Sharaf as saying.

Turkey has begun extending aid across its border with Syria to help people who have massed there fleeing unrest, the emergency situations agency said Sunday.

"Distribution of humanitarian aid has begun to meet the urgent food needs of Syrian citizens waiting on the Syrian side of our border," the statement, posted on the agency's website, said.

Ousted Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, whose trial begins in absentia in Tunis on Monday, denies all charges against him and hopes his country will "overcome chaos," his lawyer said.

Ben Ali "strongly denies all charges they are trying to press as he never possessed the sums of money they claimed to have found in his office," his Beirut-based lawyer Akram Azoury said in a statement released on the eve of the trial.

Libyan officials showed reporters five bodies, two of them of toddlers, they said were among nine civilians killed in a "barbaric" NATO air raid Sunday, as pressure mounted on the alliance to allow a political solution.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim accused the Western alliance of "deliberately targeting civilians," insisting there were no military targets anywhere near the residential neighborhood of the capital that was hit.

Britain urged its nationals on Saturday to leave Syria "now" by commercial means, warning that its embassy in Damascus would unlikely be able to help them if the situation deteriorates further.

"British nationals should leave now by commercial means whilst these are still operating," the Foreign Office said in updated travel advice.

Morocco's youth-based February 20 Movement called Saturday for nationwide protests against constitutional reforms proposed by King Mohammed VI.

"The national coordinators (of the movement) have called for a demonstration Sunday for a truly democratic constitution and a parliamentary monarchy," a member of the movement's Rabat section told Agence France Presse.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday urged a transition to democracy in Syria, saying in a commentary in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that the regime crackdown would not quell the momentum for change.

In an English translation provided by the State Department, Clinton wrote under the headline "There Is No Going Back in Syria" that it was "increasingly clear" the crackdown was an irreversible shift in the country's push towards reform.

The United States is studying whether war crimes charges can be brought against Syria to pressure its regime to end a bloody crackdown on dissent, a senior administration official said Friday.

The official said other measures, including sanctions targeting the country's oil and gas sector, were being considered as part of a broader diplomatic campaign to increase pressure on Syria's President Bashar Assad.