EU foreign ministers adopted fresh sanctions against Syria's military brass on Monday, targeting a large number of security officials on a new list of people and firms hit by a travel ban and asset freeze.

Ministers targeted 22 people and eight companies in this 11th round of EU sanctions to protest the ongoing repression in Syria, said a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A court in Algeria has sentenced a fugitive leader of al-Qaida's north African wing and three of his followers to death for attacks against the military.

The sentence against Mokhtar Belmokhtar and the three others was handed down in absentia on Sunday night after a day-long trial in Algiers.

Syria has signed a $550 million (425 million euro) contract to purchase 36 Yak-130 advanced training fighter planes from Russia, the Kommersant business daily reported on Monday.

The deal was signed in December with Russia's Rosoboronexport state defense corporation, Kommersant cited a source close to the agency as saying, adding that production of the jets would begin once the advance payment was made.

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.

A new plan by the Arab League to end violence in Syria was "unattainable" and would allow President Bashar Assad's regime more time to pursue its bloody crackdown, an opposition group said on Monday.

"The Syrian people have lost confidence in the Arab League's ability to stop the regime’s ongoing bloodshed," the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organizes anti-regime protests, said in a statement received in Nicosia.

Syria on Monday rejected an Arab League plan for President Bashar al-Assad to transfer power to his deputy, calling the initiative a "flagrant interference," state TV quoted an official as saying.

"Syria rejects the decisions taken which are outside an Arab working plan, and considers them an attack on its national sovereignty and a flagrant interference in internal affairs," the official was quoted as saying.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday decided to go to the U.N. Security Council to seek its support for the Arab League’s decisions aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis.

The Arab League "has decided to go to the U.N. Security Council to seek its support for the Arab initiative and we're not seeking internationalization or a military solution," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, the head of an Arab taskforce on Syria, clarified after the meeting.

The Syrian National Council, the country's largest opposition group, called on Sunday for the Syria file to be transferred to the U.N. Security Council for referral to the International Criminal Court.

The SNC "asks the Arab League to transfer the Syria file to the Security Council as quickly as possible," said a statement the group adopted at a meeting in Cairo, which coincided with a gathering of Arab foreign ministers to mull the future of their much-criticized Syria observer mission.

Turkey is ready to work with the United Nations if a humanitarian crisis develops in neighboring Syria after months of deadly political unrest, its foreign minister was quoted as saying on Sunday.

"We hope that before the situation reaches that stage, the Syrian administration will halt the unjust war it has waged against its own people and find ways to make peace with its people," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Activists behind the uprising which ousted Hosni Mubarak are up in arms over grandiose plans by Egypt's military rulers to celebrate the first anniversary of the revolution, insisting it is still a work in progress.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has fireworks displays and other celebrations lined up for January 25 to mark one year since the launch of the revolt that forced president Mubarak to step down after three decades in power.