Tribesmen fighting Yemeni troops loyal to under-fire President Ali Abdullah Saleh shot down Wednesday an army warplane north of Sanaa, witnesses and tribal sources said.

The jetfighter was downed by anti-aircraft guns near Arhab, 40 kilometers north of the capital, where armed tribesmen have been locked in combat with the elite Republican Guard, led by Saleh's son Ahmed.

The United States said Tuesday it was disappointed by Israel's announced plans to build new homes for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem.

"We are deeply disappointed," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, adding the U.S. considered the move "counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties."

A judicial official says Libya's ex-prime minister has been freed from jail after an appeals court overturned his conviction for illegally entering Tunisia.

Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi was arrested Sept. 22 on charges of illegal entry after he was found without a visa as he was trying to flee across the border to Algeria. He was convicted the same day to six months in prison.

Syrian forces mounting raids on dissidents killed at least nine civilians on Tuesday, rights groups said, as Damascus accused the West of trying to break up the country with "total chaos."

And as China expressed its concern at the wider implications of the turbulence, the United States warned of signs that President Bashar al-Assad's opponents were turning to violence.

Egypt will hold on November 28 its first parliamentary election since an uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February, the ruling military announced in a decree in Tuesday.

The country's military ruler, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, decided that the election would be held "over three rounds staring on November 28," the official MENA news agency reported.

Israeli's Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that its district planning committee had approved a plan for 1,100 new homes in the east Jerusalem settlement neighborhood of Gilo.

"The Israeli interior ministry announced on Tuesday that the plan for 1,100 new housing units in Gilo had passed its district planning committee, and will now be available for public objections for 60 days," a ministry statement said.

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.