Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday decreed a general amnesty for Muslim Brotherhood members and political prisoners after two months of deadly anti-regime protests, the official SANA news agency reported.

"President Assad has by decree issued an amnesty on all crimes committed before May 31, 2011," it reported. "The amnesty applies to all political prisoners as well as to the Muslim Brotherhood."

Iran is "optimistic" about boosting ties with Egypt, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was reported as saying Tuesday after Cairo expelled an Iranian diplomat on suspicion of spying.

"We are optimistic about the future of ties between the two countries," Salehi was quoted as saying by state television's website

Bahrain's King Hamad called on Tuesday for a national dialogue to begin on July 1, as the authorities readied to lift a state of emergency enacted during a crackdown on demonstrators, BNA state news agency said.

"I appeal to the executive and legislature to convene a dialogue of national consensus," the king was quoted as telling a group of journalists.

Moammar Gadhafi's regime is "finished," Italy's foreign minister said Tuesday in the Libyan rebel stronghold after NATO warplanes struck Tripoli and African efforts for a ceasefire stalled.

"The Gadhafi regime is finished, he must leave office, he must leave the country," Franco Frattini told a joint news conference in Benghazi with Ali al-Essawi, the rebels' foreign affairs chief.

Eleven Yemeni soldiers were killed in two attacks by alleged al-Qaida fighters on Tuesday, and another two soldiers died of wounds sustained previously, security officials and medics said.

Six soldiers were killed and eight wounded in the first attack, which was on the Dofas military checkpoint about a kilometer from Abyan province's capital Zinjibar, a security official and a medic said.

An Egyptian former bank chairman has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a maid in a luxury New York hotel less than two weeks after a former IMF chief was indicted on similar charges.

Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar, 74, the former director of the Bank of Alexandria and now the chairman of the El-Mex Salines Company, was arrested on Monday after the maid accused him of sexually assaulting her, police said.

The Syrian military used heavy machine-guns and artillery in fresh attacks on a town in the country's turbulent heartland Tuesday, killing at least one person, activists said.

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria, which helps organize and document the country's protests, said heavy gunfire could be heard in Rastan, which is a few kilometers north of the central city of Homs and has been under attack since Sunday.

A South African law firm is involved in talks to defend Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi against charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, a newspaper said Tuesday.

According to The Times newspaper, Libyan officials entered into a "mandate agreement" with Langa Attorneys to provide legal advice and services to Gadhafi and other top leaders three weeks ago.

Israeli troops arrested 12 suspected members of Islamic Jihad overnight near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, the army said on Tuesday.

Palestinian security forces confirmed the arrests, saying two of those detained were women.

Fierce fighting erupted around the Sanaa home of dissident tribal chief Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar on Tuesday as a truce that ended deadly clashes last week broke down, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

There wrere also heavy exchanges between the tribesmen and loyalist troops around the headquarters of the military police and the official Saba news agency, as well as in a major thoroughfare, the correspondent said.