Libya's new rulers have decided to postpone formation of a transitional government until the entire country is liberated from forces loyal to ex-leader Moammar Gadhafi, an official said on Tuesday.

"Consultations have led to a decision to postpone the formation of a government until after liberation," Mustafa al-Huni, a member of the ruling National Transitional Council, said in the NTC's eastern bastion of Benghazi.

Fugitive Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi has told his supporters that he is still fighting on the ground and is ready to die a martyr, a loyalist website reported on Tuesday.

"Heroes have resisted and fallen as martyrs and we too are awaiting martyrdom," the website of the defunct Allibiya state television channel quoted Gadhafi as saying in a speech broadcast on local radio in Bani Walid, one of his last remaining bastions.

A walkabout in central Cairo by Egypt's military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi donning civilian clothes has unleashed a torrent of questions about his political intentions.

Tantawi took a stroll in Cairo's Downtown area on Monday night wearing a business suit and with no personal security in tow.

Yemeni Defense Minister Mohammad Nasser Ahmad Ali escaped an assassination bid by a suicide bomber Tuesday in the southern port city of Aden but 10 of his party were wounded, a security official said.

"A suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives drove into the minister's motorcade as he was driving out of a tunnel," the official told Agence France Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The foreign ministers of Bahrain and Iran met in New York late Monday for their first talks since the two countries withdrew their ambassadors in a row over the crushing of Shiite-led protests in Manama, Iran said on Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told his Bahraini counterpart that the Sunni minority government should open a dialogue with the Gulf kingdom's Shiite majority, his ministry quoted him as saying.

A group of 38 women and seven girls arrested last week during a protest against Bahrain's parliamentary by-elections have reportedly been tortured or ill-treated, Amnesty International said.

"They were apprehended without lawyers present and some of them reportedly tortured or otherwise ill-treated," the London-based advocacy group said in a statement late on Monday.

Iraq has signed an agreement with the United States to buy 18 F-16s and has already made an initial payment as part of the deal, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday.

"Iraq has signed with Washington to buy the F-16s," Ali Mussawi said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested in an interview published Tuesday that he would not seek to lure the Palestinians back to peace talks by renewing a freeze on settlement building.

"We already gave at the office," Netanyahu told The Jerusalem Post, referring to a 10-month partial settlement freeze that expired in late September 2010.

Troops of Libya's new rulers seized control of the port in Sirte, Moammar Gadhafi's birthplace, in fighting with the ousted leader's diehards during the night, a commander told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"There were clashes in the night and we now are controlling the port," said Commander Mustafa bin Dardef of the Zintan brigade, which is attached to the National Transitional Council (NTC), the new ruling body of Libya.

Syrian forces strafed the city of Rastan in central Homs province with machinegun fire from sunrise on Tuesday, wounding at least 20 people, a human rights group said.

The city, about 180 kilometers (120 miles) from Damascus and a gateway to the country's north, has been the focus of security force operations against anti-regime dissent for several days, according to activists.