Syria has freed 260 political detainees, including Islamists and Kurds, who were being held at the country's infamous Saydnaya prison, rights groups reported Saturday.

"Syrian authorities have freed 260 detainees, mainly Islamists but also including 14 Kurds, in a move that comes as part of the promises authorities made recently to boost freedom in Syria," Abdul Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights, told Agence France Presse.

Jordan's Islamic opposition, leftists and trade unions on Saturday demanded the ouster of Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit, who they blame for violence that has killed one person and injured 130.

"We demand the prime minister and intelligence chief (Mohammed Raqqad) quit," said Firas Mahadin of the March 24 youth group at a news conference organized by Islamists. "We have reached a point of no return."

Libyan rebels seized control of the strategic oil town of Ajdabiya on Saturday, marking their first significant victory over Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's forces since the start of the Western air strikes a week ago.

The rebels, backed by a barrage of Western bombardment, powered into the town, leaving a trail of destroyed tanks and military vehicles along the road, Agence France Presse correspondents at the scene reported.

Protesters in Syria vowed to hit the streets on Saturday, despite a rising death toll in demonstrations that have put President Bashar al-Assad under unprecedented domestic pressure.

A Facebook group that has emerged as the motor behind a string of demonstrations that have surfaced in Syria this month drummed up support for more rallies on Saturday, the morning after more than a dozen died in protests across the country.

The party of Yemen's embattled president has rejected protester demands for him to resign as "unacceptable," while blaming the opposition for raising tensions, Saba state news agency reported Saturday.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978, has faced mounting pressure to leave office from continuing protests against his rule, and defections by top military, tribal and religious leaders.

The wave of optimism surrounding the formation of the Lebanese government has diminished after Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun renewed his demands over the distribution of portfolios.

The pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported on Saturday that Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat and Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh’s recent visits to Syria where they met Syrian President Bashar Assad presented a “strong push towards forming the government.”

Huge explosions shook a military site in an eastern suburb of Libya's capital early Saturday as Western forces piled pressure on Colonel Moammar Gadhafi with a barrage of air strikes.

The blasts, on the eighth day of a Western bombing campaign to halt attacks by Gadhafi's forces on civilians, left a radar facility in flames in Tajura, home to several military bases, a witness told Agence France Presse.

More than 100 people were injured Friday as pro-reform protesters and government supporters clashed in Amman, prompting police to use water cannons to disperse them.

Anti-riot police also broke up a protest camp for students and arrested several of them, a security official told Agence France Presse.

A total of 17 people were killed Friday when a demonstration headed to the Syrian protest city of Daraa was raked by gunfire, a human rights activist said.

"Seventeen protesters were killed in a shooting in the village of Sanamen as they were headed toward Daraa," a tribal town 100 kilometers south of Damascus, he told Agence France Presse, requesting anonymity.

Protests spread in Syria on Friday from their southern epicenter of Daraa to Damascus and a town south of the capital, where authorities moved to arrest at least five demonstrators.

Hundreds of people marched from Omayyed mosque in the centre of Damascus' Old City along Souk Al-Hamadiyeh Street chanting: "Daraa is Syria" and "We will sacrifice ourselves for Syria."