Gulf Arab states have decided to pull their observers sent to Syria as part of an Arab League mission out of the restive country, they announced in a joint official statement on Tuesday.

"Gulf Cooperation Council states have decided to follow Saudi Arabia's decision to pull out its observers from the Arab League mission in Syria," the GCC statement said.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh was en route to the United States, Yemen's state news agency said on Monday, as mutinous soldiers called for the ouster of the air force commander, his half-brother.

The announcement came a day after Saleh in a televised address apparently marking the end of his rule appealed for forgiveness from the Yemeni people for "any shortcomings" during his 33 years in power.

Pirates hijacked an Italian chemical and oil tanker with six Italians, five Ukrainians and seven Indians on board at dawn on Tuesday off Oman in an area where Somali pirates operate, officials said.

"It was attacked at four or five in the morning. There were 18 people on board," Domenico Ievoli, the Naples-based owner of the ship, Marnavi, told Agence France Presse.

Leaders of the world's biggest gas suppliers ended their first summit on Tuesday by reiterating the need for a fair gas price while Iran, whose president was absent, warned that Western taxation will derail the energy market.

The 12-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) expressed in a declaration they issued after the one-day summit "the need to reach a fair price for natural gas based on gas to oil ... prices indexation."

Four crewmen died and five are still missing after an Indian ship sank in bad weather off the coast of Oman, state media in the Gulf sultanate reported on Sunday.

The Omani coastguard rescued six sailors and recovered four bodies after the sinking around 12 kilometers (eight miles) off the town of Sadh in the southern Dhofar region, the reports said.

Eleven people, including two children, have been killed in flash floods caused by heavy rains that have hit Oman over the past three days, the Arabian Peninsula state's police announced on Thursday.

"Eleven people died in several of the sultanate's provinces when their vehicles were swept by heavy rains as they drove through valleys," state news agency ONA quoted a police statement as saying.

Members of Oman's recently elected Majlis Al-Shura consultative council elected Saturday their speaker for the first time ever after Sultan Qaboos slightly expanded the body's powers.

Khaled bin Hilal al-Maawali got 50 votes from the 84-member council, whose chief used to be named by the sultan, ONA state news agency.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Oman's Sultan Qaboos Wednesday to discuss mutual cooperation and political developments in the region, the official Omani news agency said.

The report said Oman's minister for foreign affairs, Oman's U.S. ambassador, and the U.S. ambassador to Oman attended the meeting but gave no further information about the discussions.

Omanis voted on Saturday to elect their purely consultative Majlis al-Shura council, which Sultan Qaboos has pledged to vest with new authorities in response to unprecedented social unrest.

Voting centers across the sultanate closed at 7:00 pm (15:00 GMT) after opening for 12 hours and drawing a "strong" turnout, according to an electoral commission official.

Omanis vote Saturday to elect the powerless Majlis al-Shura consultative council, which Sultan Qaboos pledged to vest with some authorities in response to unprecedented social unrest.

Some 518,000 eligible voters out of about two million Omanis have been called to take part in the polls in which 1,133 candidates, including 77 women, are competing for four-year terms in the 84-seat council.