Jordan's King Abdullah II said on Wednesday that Arab uprisings had emphasized the need for political reform in the kingdom which would eventually lead to a system of parliamentary government.

"The sensitive regional circumstances and the transformations ... compel us to assert our firm conviction that public participation ... and unwavering commitment to reform are the only way forward," the king said as he opened parliament's second ordinary session.

NATO decided to delay a formal decision to end Libyan air operations until Friday after Libya's new rulers asked for an extension and Russia demanded U.N. consultations, diplomats said.

In the wake of Moammar Gadhafi's death last week, NATO's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), had been expected to formally agree Wednesday to set October 31 as the date to end the seven-month-old air war.

Nine Syrian soldiers, including an officer, were killed on Wednesday by a rocket, probably fired by army deserters, in the flashpoint Hama region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Nine servicemen, including an officer of the Syrian regular army, were killed by a rocket, fired by armed men, probably deserters. The soldiers were on a vehicle in al-Hamrat village, on the Hama-Salamiyah road," the Britain-based rights group said.

A new campaign has emerged in Egypt aiming to persuade Egyptians to elect military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as the next president, despite almost weekly protests calling on the army to go back to barracks.

Tantawi heads the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) which took power when a popular uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February, and has been criticized for stalling reform.

Qatar revealed for the first time on Wednesday that hundreds of its soldiers had joined Libyan rebel forces on the ground as they battled troops of veteran leader Moammar Gadhafi.

"We were among them and the numbers of Qataris on ground were hundreds in every region," said Qatari chief of staff Major General Hamad bin Ali al-Atiya.

Envoys of the Middle East Quartet are to hold separate talks on Wednesday with Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in a bid to find a way to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.

But the chances a breakthrough in the deadlock which has gripped the negotiations for more than a year look extremely remote with both sides taking very different positions on the conditions for restarting talks.

Libya's interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil on Wednesday urged NATO to continue its Libya campaign until at least the end of 2011, at a conference of the North African nation's military allies in Doha.

"We hope (NATO) will continue its campaign until at least the end of this year to serve us and neighboring countries," Abdel Jalil, head of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), told the conference.

At least 19 Yemeni civilians, government troops and dissident soldiers were killed in continuing violence in the wake of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's most recent pledge to resign, medics said on Wednesday.

The deaths, both in the capital Sanaa and in the country's second largest city, Taez, came after Saleh told the U.S. ambassador to Yemen on Tuesday that he would sign a Gulf-brokered power transition plan that calls on him to step down within 30 days.

At least 19 people were killed in violence-hit Syria on Wednesday, activists said, as tens of thousands of supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rallied in Damascus, in a show of support for the embattled leader.

The demonstrators, waving Syrian flags and brandishing pictures of Assad, swarmed to Omayyad Square, chanting, "The people want Bashar al-Assad."

The leader of Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party said Wednesday that its commanding lead in historic elections made it the "natural" choice to lead the country's next government.

"It is natural that the party which obtained the majority heads the government," Rached Ghannouchi said in a radio interview as provisional tallies showed Ennahda leading the count following Sunday's poll.