Five people have been killed in an assault launched by al-Qaida fighters Tuesday on a Yemeni army convoy ferrying supplies to troops in the restive southern Abyan province, a military official said.

Three Yemeni soldiers and two fighters of al-Qaida were killed during the assault on the military convoy in the village of Mazraat Mashhour, southwest of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan, the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Australia Tuesday expelled Syria's top diplomat over the "hideous and brutal" massacre at Houla of more than 100 people, with Foreign Minister Bob Carr saying he expected other countries to follow suit.

Syrian charge d'affaires Jawdat Ali was notified of the decision to expel him and one other diplomat a day after he was called in to meet with officials over the killings which sparked global condemnation.

U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to "act now" to end 15 months of bloodshed, during a meeting in Damascus on Tuesday.

"I appealed to him for bold steps now -- not tomorrow, now -- to create momentum for the implementation of the plan," Annan told reporters in the Syrian capital.

Iran announced Tuesday it has delayed the launch of an experimental observation satellite that was supposed to have happened a week ago, saying it would now take place sometime within the next 10 months.

The country's space agency chief, Hamid Fazeli, announced the new window for launch to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Britain summoned Syria's top diplomat in London to the foreign ministry on Monday to protest against the "sickening and evil" Houla massacre of more than 100 people, the government said.

Syria's charge d'affaires -- their ambassador has been withdrawn -- was warned during the meeting with a top Foreign Office diplomat that the international community would take further action if Damascus does not implement U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan.

An Israeli court on Monday found two policemen guilty of negligent homicide after they dumped an injured Palestinian prisoner at the side of a West Bank road and left him to die, legal documents showed.

"By setting down the deceased in the condition and under the circumstances which they did, the accused breached their duty of care toward the deceased," Jerusalem magistrate Haim Liran wrote in his ruling, a copy of which was obtained by Agence France Presse.

The United Nations, not Syria, must investigate the Houla massacre, Human Rights Watch said adding that witness testimony suggest government forces were responsible for the carnage.

"Kofi Annan should push Syria's government to allow the U.N.-appointed Commission of Inquiry access into the country to investigate," the massacre in which at least 108 people were killed, including 49 children.

Air raids, including by U.S. drones, and clashes in Yemen have killed at least 17 al-Qaida militants and a civilian, officials and tribesmen said on Monday.

Five militants of al-Qaida were killed when they were hit by a U.S. drone on Monday, a tribal source told Agence France Presse.

Syria's leaders will have to answer for their "murderous folly", the French president's office said Monday, a day after the U.N. Security Council condemned the slaughter of civilians there, as the opposition Syrian National Council urged countries that support the revolt to honor their promises by helping Syrians defend themselves.

"The Houla massacre and the events of these last days in Syria and in Lebanon illustrate, once more, the danger of Bashar Assad's regime's actions for the Syrian people," said a statement.

A fire that erupted on Monday at a nursery in a main shopping center in the Qatari capital killed 19 people including 13 children, the interior ministry said.

Four of the children who died were Spanish, said a foreign ministry spokeswoman in Madrid.