Ayad al-Shabwani, a leader of Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was killed during a battle with the army that left 10 soldiers dead, a military source and medics said on Thursday.

Shabwani was killed on Tuesday by artillery fire during heavy fighting that continued into Wednesday between the army and suspected al-Qaida militants near Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, east of the main southern city Aden, the military source said.

The new Egyptian cabinet is due to be sworn in on Thursday, a military official said, three days behind schedule after last minute negotiations and the prime minister's admission to hospital.

"The new ministers in Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's government will be sworn in on Thursday in front of the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi," the official told the state MENA news agency.

Yemen's opposition accused the government of attempting to assassinate a leader of al-Islah party on Wednesday by firing at his car in Sanaa, an opposition website said.

Mohammed Abdullah al-Yadumi's car was fired on about 2:00 pm (1000 GMT), said a statement attributed to the Common Forum of parliamentary opposition parties, carried on alsahwa-yemen.net, which is affiliated with the Islamist al-Islah (Reform) party.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's removal from power is not up for discussion, Foreign Minister Abdelati al-Obeidi said Wednesday following talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

"The question of Gadhafi's departure is not up for negotiation," Obeidi told reporters after an hour of talks with Russia's chief diplomat at Moscow's foreign ministry headquarters.

Military leaders from the rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata asked French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday for extra aid to defeat ruler Moammar Gadhafi, a member of their delegation said.

"Insurgent commanders came to explain to the head of state that the keys to Tripoli are in Misrata because Misrata's fighters are disciplined, battle hardened and they have a key asset: a military victory already won" against forces loyal to Gadhafi, Bernard-Henri Levy told Agence France Presse after the meeting.

Syria has apologized to Qatar for an attack by demonstrators on its embassy in Damascus that prompted it to suspend work in the strife-torn country, an official in Doha said on Wednesday.

"Syria has sent a letter of apology to the Qatari ministry of foreign affairs," the Qatari official said on condition of anonymity.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem warned the French and U.S. ambassadors on Wednesday not to travel outside Damascus without permission from the authorities, after they both visited the flashpoint central city of Hama earlier this month.

"We will impose a ban on any (diplomatic) travel more than 25 kilometers outside Damascus, if the ambassadors continue to ignore (our) guidance," Muallem told the envoys at a meeting broadcast by state television.

Former U.N. nuclear watchdog Chief Mohamed ElBaradei is the most popular choice for next Egyptian president, according to an army survey conducted on Facebook, state media reported on Wednesday.

The survey, which was launched a month ago on Facebook, asked members to rate their favorite for the country's top job, in an exercise criticized as unrepresentative.

A United Arab Emirates (UAE) fighter plane has crashed on a training mission, killing its pilot, the official WAM news agency reported on Wednesday.

"The general command of the UAE Armed Forces today announced the crash of a fighter aircraft of the United Arab Emirates Air Force and Air Defense and the death of its pilot, First Lieutenant Pilot Suhail Mubarak Abdullah Al Dhahiri," WAM said.

Yemen's opposition is to form a coalition to unite its various strands ahead of the return of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is hospitalized in Saudi Arabia, a spokesman said Wednesday.

A preparatory committee on Tuesday night approved the creation of a "national coalition council," Ahmed al-Sabri, the spokesman for the committee, told Agence France Presse.