The leader of Tunisia's center-left Progressive Democratic Party, tipped in second place ahead of the country's first free elections, conceded defeat Monday as votes were being counted.

"The trend is clear. The PDP is badly placed. It is the decision of the Tunisian people. I bow before their choice," PDP leader Maya Jribi told Agence France Presse at party headquarters as the Islamist Ennahda party claimed to be in the lead.

Interim leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil on Monday set a two-week target for Libya to have a new government and said a commission of inquiry is being formed to probe Moammar Gadhafi’s killing.

"We have begun talks (on forming a government), and this matter will not take a month but will be finished within two weeks," the National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman told a media conference in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Syrian forces shot and killed four civilians Monday in the flashpoint central city of Homs, where troops were raking several neighborhoods with heavy artillery fire, a rights watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one person was killed in the army's operations while the three others were shot dead by security forces and pro-regime militiamen.

The U.S. on Monday pulled its ambassador out of Syria what it said were security concerns, prompting a swift response from Damascus which recalled its ambassador to Washington a few hours later for "consultations."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after "credible threats against his personal safety."

Yemeni tribes backing a nine-month protest movement against President Ali Abdullah Saleh clashed with his loyalists on Monday in Sanaa, witnesses said, after weekend gun fights left more than 20 dead.

The firefight in north Sanaa began after midnight and continued into the morning in al-Hassaba neighborhood, the base of tribesmen led by Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, a fierce foe of Saleh, residents said.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had dismissed from command an officer implicated in the death of a Palestinian in the West Bank last month.

The officer, who was not named, was reportedly in command of the unit that opened fire on Palestinians in the West Bank village of Qusra, killing one, as they clashed with settlers who had attacked the area on September 23.

The discovery of 53 decaying bodies in Sirte, final bastion of Libya's ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi, suggests some of his loyalists were executed, a rights group said.

"We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently Gadhafi supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte," said Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch (HRW), who investigated the killings.

Attacks mainly targeting Iraqi traffic police across Baghdad on Monday killed at least four people, security and medical officials said.

In the deadliest attack, gunmen opened fire on a traffic police patrol near the al-Sarafiyah bridge in Waziriyah neighborhood in the north of the capital on Monday morning.

An Iranian-American accused of plotting to get Mexican gangsters to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington was due in federal court Monday in New York, when he was expected to enter a plea.

Manssour Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen holding Iranian and U.S. passports who lived for many years in Texas where he worked as a used car salesman, was arrested last month at New York's John F. Kennedy international airport.

Libya's new leaders on Sunday declared the country "liberated", three days after ousted despot Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed, paving the way for the formation of an interim government.

The long-awaited declaration came amid raging controversy over the circumstances of Gadhafi’s death after he was taken alive during the fall of his hometown Sirte. Britain said the incident had "stained" the National Transitional Council (NTC).