The Gulf Cooperation Council said on Sunday that a ceremony to finalize a Yemeni pact ending three months of protests has been cancelled after embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused to sign.

"The ceremony that was supposed to be held (Sunday)... will not take place," said the press office of GCC secretary general Abdullatif al-Zayani, after the Gulf-brokered deal between Saleh and the opposition collapsed in tatters.

A NATO air strike killed Moammar Gadhafi's youngest son and three grandchildren but the strongman escaped unhurt, a Libyan spokesman said Sunday, after rebels and NATO spurned an offer for talks to end the crisis.

The house of Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29, "was attacked tonight with full power," government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told a news conference, announcing the deaths in the Saturday evening strikes.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the country's best organized movement, on Saturday announced the formation of a party to contest up to half of parliament's seats in a September election.

Mohammed Hussein, the group's secretary general, said at a news conference that the movement's consultative council decided at a meeting to adopt a decision to form the new Freedom and Justice Party.

Syrian army troops backed by tanks and three helicopters on Saturday took a prominent mosque that had been controlled by residents in a besieged southern city killing four people, a witness said.

The operation in the town of Daraa came a day after President Bashar Assad unleashed deadly force to crush a months-old revolt, killing at least 65 people, mostly in the border town.

The Libyan opposition Transitional National Council (TNC) on Saturday rejected calls for talks by strongman Moammer Gadhafi, saying he had no role to play in the north African nation's future.

"The time for compromise has passed," said Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the transitional council that has shaped itself into a parallel government in the rebel-held eastern city of Benghazi.

Two servicemen and four civilians were killed and another 23 were wounded in south Yemen during a shutdown called by anti-government protesters on Saturday, officials said.

The ministry of defense said an officer and a soldier were killed and two more soldiers were wounded, but gave no further details, Agence France Presse reported.

A top Iranian military officer on Saturday denounced what he called an "Arab dictatorial front" and claimed that the "Persian Gulf has belonged to Iran forever", media reports said.

"The Arab dictatorial regimes in the Persian Gulf are unable to contain the popular uprisings," General Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, was widely quoted as saying by Iranian media on Saturday.

The Taliban on Saturday announced the beginning of their spring military offensive against the U.S.-led coalition, a day after a new Pentagon report claimed that the militants' fighting spirit was low after sustaining heavy losses on the battlefield, Associated Press reported.

In a two-page statement, the Taliban said that beginning Sunday they would launch attacks on military bases, convoys and Afghan officials, including members of the government's peace council, who are working to reconcile with top insurgent leaders.

Ismail Haniya, the prime minister of the Islamist Hamas movement in power in the Gaza Strip, said on Saturday he was "ready to resign."

"I am prepared to tender my resignation as part of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah," the secular party of Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmud Abbas.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has imposed new media restrictions and threatened hefty fines and closure of news organizations allegedly undermining national security, press reports said on Saturday.

Under a decree issued on Friday, the media will be prohibited from reporting anything that contradicts the strict Islamic sharia law or serves "foreign interests and undermines national security," Agence France Presse reported.