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."

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh offered to hand over power to "safe hands" but vowed to resist an escalating campaign to force him out of office, in an address to a huge crowd of supporters.

"We will stand firm with you ... steadfast in the face of all challenges," said Saleh, wearing a smart suit and sunglasses as he tries to snatch back the initiative from the opposition.

Syrian activists vowed to push on with rallies against "injustice and repression" on Friday after weekly Muslim prayers, dismissing reform pledges announced by the authorities.

Facebook group The Syria Revolution 2011, which has attracted almost 78,000 fans, called for "Day of Dignity" rallies Friday at mosques across Syria, after a week of deadly protests in the south.

France's Chief of Defense said Friday in a radio interview that he thought allied military operations in Libya would last a matter of "weeks" and hopefully not "months".

"I doubt that it will be (over) in days, I think it will be weeks, and I hope it won't be in months," Admiral Edouard Guillaud told the France Info radio station.

A Palestinian and an Israeli soldier were injured Friday in a scuffle in the Jordan valley region of the occupied West Bank, police said.

"Police lightly injured a Palestinian when they opened fire at him after he tried to snatch a soldier's weapon," spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, adding that the soldier was hit in the head by stones Palestinians threw at him.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel is ready to act with "great force" against militant attacks; a day after Israelis launched retaliatory strikes in Gaza.

Israel had been "subjected to bouts of terror and rocket attacks," Netanyahu said following a spate of rocket fire on southern Israel from Gaza and a bombing in Jerusalem that killed one and wounded more than 30 people.