Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has met with leaders of Syria's opposition movement urging unity in pursuit of a peaceful transition in the country, a Turkish diplomat said Tuesday.

"The minister met with representatives of the Syrian opposition, for the first time, in Ankara on Monday," the diplomat told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Yemen's Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman said the U.N. must act "immediately and decisively" to halt a deadly government crackdown on protesters calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign.

Karman urged the United Nations "to take immediate and decisive action to stop the massacres and hold the perpetrators accountable," in a letter to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, a copy of which she showed to Agence France Presse late Monday during a visit to Doha.

At least five protesters were killed and dozens wounded on Tuesday as gunmen loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire at demonstrators in the Yemeni capital, an Agence France Presse journalist and medics said.

The bodies of two demonstrators were taken earlier to a makeshift hospital in Change Square, where anti-Saleh protesters have camped out, an AFP photographer said. Dozens of demonstrators were wounded or hurt by tear gas.

Some of the Palestinian prisoners released as part of a deal to hand over captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will be taken in by Turkey, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported Monday.

The agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Turkey would host some of the released prisoners along with Qatar and Egypt.

Looking dazed, a thin and pale Gilad Shalit emerged from a pickup truck Tuesday under the escort of his Hamas captors and the Egyptian mediators who helped arrange the Israeli tank crewman's release after more than five years in captivity.

Freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, an ashen-faced Shalit struggled to breathe in an interview with Egyptian TV minutes after his release, saying that he had feared he would remain in captivity for "many more years." He said he was "very excited" to be headed home and that he missed his family and friends.

Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Al-Sabah, a senior member of the ruling family, has resigned, local media reported Tuesday, amid tensions over a graft scandal involving several MPs.

Citing "high ranking" sources, Al-Anbaa newspaper said Sheikh Mohammad, who has been foreign minister in the oil-rich Gulf state since 2003, "submitted his resignation on Monday and did not attend the cabinet meeting."

Syrian troops killed 25 people, 21 of which were shot dead during search operations in the flashpoint central city of Homs on Monday, a human rights watchdog said.

"Twenty-one people, some civilians and others police officers, were killed in Homs during operations by the army and the security services in several neighborhoods of the city," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Monday pushed ahead with his political reform plans, appointing a new prime minister and intelligence chief after Maaruf Bakhit's government failed to meet growing calls for change.

The king named International Court of Justice judge Awn Khasawneh, 61, as prime minister, telling him that his government's "top priority is political reform."

A deal to release a U.S.-Israeli joint national held in a Cairo prison in exchange for 81 Egyptians held in Israel is imminent, unnamed Israeli officials told public radio on Monday.

Ilan Grapel, who has been in custody since June 12, is accused of being an agent of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and of sowing sectarian strife and chaos in Egypt during the uprising which ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February.

Libyan fighters raised the new government's flag over the oasis of Bani Walid Monday and hoped for the swift fall of the other remaining redoubt of Moammar Gadhafi loyalists, Sirte, as relatives of his henchmen fled.

Cries of Allahu Akhbar (God is Greatest) and bursts of celebratory machinegun fire filled the desert air over the centre of Bani Walid, as the new regime troops feted their capture of the loyalist bastion after a six-week siege.