The bid to overthrow Syria's government is over, and the battle now is to secure stability, foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi said in a report by state media on Saturday.

"The battle to topple the state is over, and the battle to solidify stability... and move on towards a renewed Syria has begun," Makdisi was cited as saying by the official SANA news agency.

At least 40 people were killed in heavy fighting on Saturday between the army and suspected al-Qaida militants in Yemen's southern province of Lahij, officials said.

"Twenty-eight soldiers were killed" in the fighting which erupted when the Islamist fighters attacked army positions in Mallah, a town in Lahij, an army officer on the ground told Agence France Presse.

Canada tightened the sanctions Friday on Syria, targeting President Bashar al-Assad's wife, mother, sister and sister-in-law a week after the European Union made a similar move.

Stepping up its sanctions as fighting raged after an embattled Assad said he had accepted a peace plan to put an end to a year of violence that has left over 9,000 dead, Canada said it sought a "Syria that respects the fundamental rights of all its people."

Egyptian Islamist sheikh Hazem Abu Ismail kicked off his candidacy for the presidency on Friday with a large motorcade that headed to the electoral committee headquarters in Cairo.

Witnesses said dozens of vehicles packed with the ultra-conservative's supporters left a mosque with the statutory 30,000 endorsements from citizens required to register as a candidate.

The United States hit Syria's defense minister and two other senior military figures with sanctions Friday, ramping pressure on Bashar al-Assad's regime as U.N. efforts failed to halt violence.

The Treasury Department announced measures against Dawoud Rajiha as well as the army's deputy chief of staff and the head of presidential security.

More than 15,000 people in Jordan, including opposition Islamists and trade unionists, held a peaceful sit-in near the border with Israel on Friday to mark Land Day.

Waving Jordanian and Palestinian flags, the demonstrators carried banners reading: "Freedom for Jerusalem and freedom for Palestine," and "Jerusalem, here we come," as they gathered in Kafrein, some 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border crossing and barely a kilometer and a half (a mile) from the frontier.

Amnesty on Friday urged Bahrain to immediately release a rights activist jailed for his role in anti-regime protests, warning his life is at risk after a hunger strike of more than seven weeks.

Abdulhadi al-Khawaja had lost 16 kilograms (35 pounds) since beginning a hunger strike 50 days ago, the London-based human rights watchdog said, citing the activist's lawyer.

A 20-year-old man was killed and another 51 people injured by Israeli fire on Friday, as thousands rallied across the West Bank and Gaza to mark Land Day, medical sources said.

Demonstrations also took place in annexed east Jerusalem and across Israel, as well as in Jordan, southern Lebanon and Syria to mark the annual event that commemorates the deaths of six Arab Israelis at the hands of Israeli forces during protests against land confiscation in 1976.

Egyptian liberal groups said on Friday that they were back to square one in a struggle with Islamists over the drafting of a new constitution a day after most parties agreed on a compromise.

China said Friday that rebels fighting in Syria had to commit to talks and stop attacks they have been carrying out, mirroring demands from embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.

A peace plan put forward by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan includes a call for a full cease-fire, but Assad's condition that there be an express promise from the opposition to stop attacks could complicate Annan's attempts to bring an end to more than a year of violence that the U.N. says has killed more than 9,000 people.