Sectarian clashes broke out in the southern Egyptian province of Assiut after a Christian student posted a drawing of the Muslim prophet on the Internet, officials said on Saturday.

The clashes, which spread to three villages, saw several Christian homes burned and left five police officers injured, a security official told Agence France Presse.

Two Yemeni soldiers and two suspected al-Qaida militants were killed in clashes overnight near the restive southern city of Zinjibar, a military source said on Saturday.

Three soldiers and four members of the Partisans of Sharia, an al-Qaida-linked insurgent group that took over most of Zinjibar earlier this year, were wounded in the fighting, the source said.

The United Nations said Friday it expects Syrian authorities to grant unfettered access and complete cooperation to Arab observers as bloodshed continues amid a crackdown on protesters.

"It is critical that the observer mission be given unhindered access and full cooperation by the government of Syria, and that its independence and impartiality be fully preserved," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

The Syrian National Council (SNC) opposition group has signed a political agreement with another faction of dissidents laying the ground rules for a "transitional period" should the regime be toppled, a statement said.

The SNC, a major umbrella of factions opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad, signed the deal with the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, NCB chief Hassan Abdel Azim told Agence France Presse.

Jordan has chosen 12 judges and military experts to join an Arab League observer mission in Syria, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The semi-official Ad-Dustour newspaper quoted Information Minister Rakan Majali as saying "the final list of names of the Jordanian team expected to join the observers' mission in Syria is ready."

The Philippine foreign minister will fly to Syria to help speed up the repatriation of Filipinos from the strife-torn country, a statement said Saturday.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario will depart on a Qatar Airways flight to Damascus late Saturday to make sure that the repatriation of Filipinos "can be made as secure as possible,” the ministry said in a statement.

Al-Qaida has sent militants to Libya in a bid to recruit a fighting force after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, but the group has yet to gain a strong foothold there, U.S. officials said Friday.

The assessment of al-Qaida's efforts in Libya came in response to a report by CNN television that experienced militants from the network -- including a former British terror suspect -- had been dispatched to the country and had managed to mobilize fighters.

Thousands of Yemenis held rival rallies across Sanaa on Friday despite President Ali Abdullah Saleh's agreement to quit and a military panel continuing to lift barricades from the streets, witnesses said.

Thousands of protesters gathered at Sittin Avenue in Sanaa's northern district calling for the trial of Saleh and all those involved in the killing of 13 people in last week's "March for Life," in which protesters walked from the flashpoint city of Taez to the capital.

A political row festered in Iraq on Friday, as a top Sunni leader denied he penned a commentary criticizing the Shiite-led government, the latest in a crisis that has stoked sectarian tensions.

Since the departure of U.S. troops less than two weeks ago, Iraq has plummeted into a political standoff, with authorities having charged Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with running a death squad and premier Nouri al-Maliki calling for his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak to be sacked.

Thousands of Islamist opposition supporters demonstrated Friday in Amman to demand reform, a week after the movement's offices in a northern city were torched during clashes with loyalists.

Chanting "enough is enough," around 7,000 people, including Islamists, youths and tribesmen, marched from Al-Husseini mosque in central Amman to the nearby city hall, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.