U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon and U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday condemned a massacre of more than 90 civilians in Syria as a "brutal" breach of international law by the government, a spokesman said.

Ban and Annan "condemn in the strongest possible terms the killing, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children" at Houla, said U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky.

Egypt's leftist presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi, who came third in landmark polls according to preliminary results, is to file a lawsuit over alleged voting irregularities, his lawyer told Agence France Presse Saturday.

Sabbahi "will file a suit with the election commission over irregularities" that may have affected the result of the first round, Mahmoud Qandeel, a lawyer with the Sabbahi campaign said.

Hundreds of Kuwaitis including several MPs rallied outside the Syrian embassy on Saturday to condemn a reported massacre in the Syrian town of Houla and to demand the arming of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Islamist MP Jamaan al-Harbash urged Turkey and all Arab states in the Gulf to act to provide protection for Syrian civilians, warning that if the governments cannot do so "they should open the door for people to fight."

Britain said Saturday it was in urgent talks with allied countries on "a strong international response" after the bodies of more than 90 people including children were found in a Syrian town.

"We are consulting urgently with our allies on a strong international response, including at the U.N. Security Council, the EU and U.N. human rights bodies," Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

The Free Syrian Army said on Saturday it could no longer commit to the ceasefire brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan unless there was an immediate solution to regime violence.

"We announce that unless the U.N. Security Council takes urgent steps for the protection of civilians, Annan's plan is going to go to hell," a statement by the FSA said.

Germany's foreign minister said Saturday he was "horrified" by reports that more than 90 people had been massacred in a Syrian town, and said those responsible must be punished.

"I am shocked and horrified by the news that dozens of civilians, including many children, were killed in attacks by the security forces of the Assad regime," Guido Westerwelle said in a statement.

A Palestinian was shot and wounded on Saturday in clashes with Jewish settlers from the hardline Yitzhar settlement in the northern West Bank, witnesses and an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Dozens of settlers, some of them armed, set alight to a field of grain and to olive trees in Orif village near the settlement, the sources said. Some fired at Palestinian villagers, one of whom was gravely wounded and taken to hospital.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is leading a delegation monitoring Egypt's first post-revolt presidential election, said on Saturday the process was "encouraging" despite unprecedented constraints.

"I would say that these (elections) have been encouraging to me," he told a news conference in Cairo, but added that his Carter Centre had "constraints placed on us as witnesses that have never been placed on us before."

Islamist lawmakers disrupted the first session of Algeria's new parliament Saturday, waving placards condemning alleged fraud in this month's elections before walking out of the chamber.

The 49 members of the three-party Green Algeria Alliance (AVV), a moderate Islamist coalition, staged their protest immediately after the roll-call of newly-elected deputies.

Thirty-three people, including six soldiers, were killed in Saturday clashes between al-Qaida and the army in southern Yemen as troops advanced towards the Abyan provincial capital Zinjibar, military and local sources said.

Soldiers from the 25th Mechanized Brigade "managed early on Saturday to deal heavy blows to terrorists in Maraqid and Mashqasa ... killing 20 terrorist elements, most of them Somalis," Brigadier General Mohammed al-Sawmali told defense ministry news website 26sep.net.