Intelligence officials in northwest Pakistan say three U.S. drone-fired missile strikes have killed at least 17 militants.
Authorities say all the strikes Monday were in South Waziristan, the country's restive tribal region near the Afghan border.
U.S. drone strikes against insurgents in the border region of Pakistan have been a source of friction between the two countries.
U.S. officials have never publicly acknowledged the use of drones inside Pakistan, but privately they have confirmed the strikes to various news outlets, saying the operations have killed mostly militants.
The attacks come after the reported death of al-Qaida operative Ilyas Kashmiri in a U.S. drone strike in the tribal region Friday.
South Korea's president is signaling to North Korea that he would like to calm rising tension on the peninsula. In remarks on Monday, he repeated an offer to pursue a path towards peace with Pyongyang.
In a Memorial Day address, President Lee Myung-bak called on North Korea to peacefully engage with the South.
The president says North Korea should stop pursuing confrontation and conflict and, instead, pursue a path of peace and prosperity. In return, he promised South Korea would patiently continue to make sincere and consistent efforts for peace on the Korean peninsula.
The two Koreas have no diplomatic relations. They fought an inconclusive civil war for three years in the early 1950s and no peace treaty has ever been signed.
The president, in his speech at the National Cemetery, made no mention of recent secret discussions between officials of the two countries.
North Korea last week revealed the clandestine talks, which took place in May in Beijing. Pyongyang alleged South Korean government officials begged and offered bribes to attempt to arrange a summit between leaders of the two countries.
South Korea's government has had little to say about the talks. But officials here deny they were attempting to arrange a summit, explaining rather they were trying to extract apologies from Pyongyang for two incidents last year that heightened tensions.
In his Memorial Day speech, President Lee said the provocation in 2010 by North Korea prompted the South to strengthen its defenses.
Seoul blames Pyongyang for the sinking in March last year of a South Korean naval warship in the Yellow Sea. An international investigation concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. Pyongyang has repeatedly denied involvement.
In November, North Korea fired artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island during South Korean military exercises, killing four people on the frontier island in the Yellow Sea.
The incidents put inter-Korean relations into a deeper chill.
Lee, since coming to office in 2008, broke with the tradition of his predecessors who attempted to engage with the communist North and provide the impoverished country with badly needed aid.
President Lee has linked any aid to the North taking steps to get rid of its nuclear programs.
In his Monday address, Lee also told his citizens that they should be prepared for re-unification with the North at any time. He called re-unification not a matter of choice but "a must" that should be pursued at any cost because it would lead to prosperity for all of the Korean people.
South Korea ranks about 15th globally in nominal gross domestic product.
North Korea's centrally-planned economy, on the other hand is only a fraction of the South's. It is heavily dependent on trade with its only significant ally, China.
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In southern Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited members of the American armed services fighting in the traditional stronghold of the Taliban. These visits are part of his multi-day farewell tour of the country before he steps down as defense secretary at the end of this month.
About 150 U.S. Army soldiers greeted outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates under an open air tent in southern Afghanistan. The first stop on his goodbye tour was to visit troops at Forward Operating Base Walton in Kandahar Province.
Gates told them he would never forget them. "More than anybody except the president, I am responsible for you being here. And that weighs on me everyday that I have had this job for four and a half years. You are, I believe, the best our country has to offer. And you will be in my thoughts and prayers for the rest of my life. Thank you," he said.
He next visited U.S. Marines in a sweltering hot tent at isolated Camp Dwyer in Helmand Province.
While Gates is traveling around the war-torn country, U.S. President Barack Obama considers how quickly and how many troops to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan next month. At Camp Dwyer, Gates said if the decision were up to him, it would be a "no brainer" that he withdraw combat troops last. "I would look for support people that we no longer need. You know, we have done a lot of construction, maybe those people are not needed. I would try to maximize my combat capability, as long as this process goes on," he said.
The defense secretary hinted late last week that he saw a possible end in sight to the nearly 10-year-old war, thanks to security gains in the past year and a half.
But while Gates said he thought there could be peace talks with the Taliban within the year, he cautioned they would only occur if NATO's ground advances continue to put pressure on the insurgents.
Field commanders at both bases said they have seen significant security gains, especially in terms of the increasing capacity of Afghan forces in areas of Kandahar Province.
But the violence rages on during what is the Taliban's traditional fighting season. Since Gates' arrival Saturday in Afghanistan, NATO has announced five service members have died in insurgent-related violence.
Gates is expected to visit more U.S. troops Monday and later in the week he heads to Brussels for a NATO security conference, which is expected to focus, in part, on the situation in Afghanistan.
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Syrian rights groups say the death toll in a two-day government crackdown on protesters in the northwest has risen to 35 as exiled opposition figures called for the isolation of President Bashar al-Assad.
The violent clashes began Saturday and continued into Sunday, after thousands of residents turned out for the funerals of other anti-government protesters killed in the crackdown. The updated casualty count includes six members of the Syrian security forces killed during operations in the towns of Jisr al-Shughour and nearby Khan Sheikhoun.
Residents and activists said the Syrian military withdrew Sunday from the central city of Hama and from southern villages but that the situation in those areas remains tense.
Rights campaigners say at least 65 people died Friday, mostly in Hama. Witnesses say security forces used live ammunition to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets after Friday prayers, demanding Mr. Assad's resignation.
The reports cannot be independently confirmed as the Syrian government has severely restricted the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to verify events on the ground.
At a meeting of Syria's mostly expatriate opposition in Brussels Sunday, leaders renewed calls on foreign governments and the United Nations to increase pressure on Mr. Assad. Opposition leaders also said they are working to compile legal cases against the Syrian government in several U.S. and European courts and the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
The United States and the European Union have already imposed sanctions on Mr. Assad and his inner circle.
Syrian activists have been protesting almost daily since March for democratic reforms and an end to President Assad's 11-year rule.
Rights groups say at least 1,100 people have been killed in the continuing crackdown and more than 10,000 arrested.
Despite official denials, protest organizers say at least 25 children are among the dead. The victims include a 13-year-old boy who was reported to have been tortured and killed by security forces, an accusation Syrian authorities dispute.
Opposition groups have issued calls to denounce the growing number of casualties among children in recent weeks. But the central neighborhoods of the capital, Damascus, and most of Syria's second city, Aleppo, have remained largely quiet as authorities tighten security there.
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Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in Saudi Arabia for treatment of injuries sustained in a rocket attack Friday, raising further uncertainty in his country, where many are seeking his ouster.
Thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets of Sana'a to celebrate President Saleh's departure. While many in the crowd decried the violence that culminated in the attack on Saleh's compound Friday, some, like this man, felt the country would be better with him gone.
Referring to the recent killing of protesters in the southern city of Taiz, the man, who did not give his name, called Saleh a murderer who has received his punishment.
A Timeline of Unrest in Yemen
January 22: Hundreds of students and other protesters gather at Sana'a University, calling for an end to the 32-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. March 1: Tens of thousands of opposition activists demand the ouster of Mr. Saleh. President Saleh fires five of 22 provincial governors, some for criticizing the crackdown on the protests. March 20-21: President Saleh dismisses his entire Cabinet. Some senior military commanders join the protesters. April 5-8: President Saleh accepts an invitation from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to hold talks in Saudi Arabia with opposition representatives. April 21-25: The GCC presents President Saleh with a plan for ending the political impasse and unrest. The plan calls for him to resign within a month and for a presidential election two months later. May 21-22: Yemen's opposition said it signed a Gulf-brokered deal. Mr. Saleh denounces the proposed deal as a "coup." June 3: President Saleh and five other Yemeni officials are wounded in a rocket attack on the presidential compound in Sana'a. June 4: President Saleh's forces and forces loyal to tribal leader Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar accept a Saudi-brokered cease-fire. Mr. Saleh flies to Saudi Arabia for treatment. Vice President Abd al-Rab Mansur Hadi takes over.
How long the president will be out of the country is uncertain. His injuries appear to be more serious than the "scratches" officials described in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
Deputy Information Minister Abdou al-Janadi said the president had assigned Vice President Abd al-Rab Mansur Hadi as acting president.
Janadi said the vice president was in continuous communication with Saleh, who he now described as having suffered burns. The official added that the president would be returning to Sana'a and resume his duties as soon as he is recovered.
But even if Saleh's physical condition improves, Saudi Arabia, which has led a regionally-mediated effort to have him leave power, could try to encourage him to not return home, as it is far from clear what his reception in Yemen would be.
The chairman of the Gulf Research Center, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Sager, believes that while the Yemeni president would never have wished for the attack that killed at least seven other people, it does provide him with a certain political cover.
"I think he could not have been luckier than that to have a face-saving device by leaving the country for a good medical cause, and not for another reason that would, in his own way of thinking, make him ashamed in front of his tribe and his people," he said.
In the interim, Sager thinks Vice President Hadi will be able to provide some short-term stability.
"We are starting to see the vice president in Yemen quickly acting in putting the scene together," said Sager. "Most likely, we are going to see a transition council, and this transition council will consist of military, tribal leaders and different opposition parties together and this is the most likely scenario we are going to see in Yemen in the next couple of days."
Beyond seeking Saleh's ouster, those leaders do not share much common ground. Rivalries split the country on political, military and tribal lines, with alliances frequently shifting.
Some officials blame the al-Ahmar clan of the Hashid tribal federation for the attack on the president's mosque, but the clan says it was not involved. Government officials say they are also investigating whether the local terror group, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was responsible.
Political protesters issued a statement after Saleh's departure calling for a civilian transitional leadership, without those involved in the violence.
While not civilian, several leading military officers who broke with the president in recent weeks have not engaged in any fighting. They have given their moral support to the anti-Saleh movement and have control over an unknown number of troops.
There are reports other troops were abandoning their positions in Taiz, and that gunmen attacked a presidential palace in the city. Security forces are also said to be withdrawing from their posts in the southern port city of Aden.
Security in Yemen is already tenuous, with areas beyond the capital largely in the hands of a variety of forces, including southern secessionists, northern rebels, a strong Islamist movement, and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
Add to that an influx of Somali refugees from across the Gulf of Aden and some observers are wondering if Yemen faces the same lawless, chaotic fate as Somalia. It is a scenario Yemen's neighbors, as well as the United States are trying to prevent.
The Gulf Research Center's Sager says any interim council must work quickly.
"Today we have a vacuum in the constitutional issues because, you know the president released the government," said Sager. "So there is no more government in place. The parliament duration is ended, so we are going to need to have elections for the parliament also, we are going to need a transition and interim government now to run the issues for a month or two until everything is put in place. I think the amount of effort required now is far, far, far, far more than what is expected during the time of Ali Saleh if he had made a smooth transition."
Analyst Sager notes that whoever runs the Arab world's poorest country must tackle all these problems with a near-empty government vault.
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NATO warplanes and attack helicopters have struck more targets in Libya, ratcheting up pressure against forces loyal to embattled leader Moammar Gadhafi. Rebel fighters have also made small gains in the Nafousa mountains, not far from the capital Tripoli.
The NATO attacks against Gadhafi forces were another small, but incremental sign the embattled Libyan leader's position is slowly being eroded.
British warplanes struck a military barracks in the capital Tripoli, while Apache helicopters were used against Gadhafi strongholds along the coast. Arab satellite channels say the deployment of attack helicopters has galvanized rebel fighters, while sapping the morale of Gadhafi loyalists.
British military commander John Kingwell stressed the use of the Apache helicopters is providing new capacity to keep Gadhafi forces in check.
"The unique capability of the attack helicopter is its ability with its very advanced fire control system and radar to actually identify and engage targets with huge precision and that is something that fixed wing at the moment is not achieving," he said. "That will enable me, if required, to provide protection to civil population in Libya where the aircraft are flying, that at present we are not."
British Army Air Corps strategist Lieutenant Colonel James noted the new tactical advantages of the helicopters will seriously impede Colonel Gadhafi's ability to harm Libyan civilians, which is NATO's core mission.
"You know it just brings something else to the party," said Etherington. "As I said, we are able to fly lower, slower, different munitions, it is an escalation and I think, you know, we are committed to support and protect the civilians that Gadhafi is persecuting."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC Britain would like Libyan rebel leaders to "give a clearer picture of how they plan to govern," if Colonel Gadhafi is driven from power.
Rebel forces in Libya's western Nafousa mountain range have reportedly gained ground in recent days, capturing three towns and lifting the siege on a fourth.
Attacks by NATO helicopters on the oil town of Brega on the central coast put added pressure on Gadhafi forces defending the town. Rebel fighters are a stone's throw away from Brega's crucial oil and gas installations, as well as the nearby oil port of Ras Lanouf.
Arab satellite channels say some Gadhafi fighters are ready to surrender, but are afraid of possible reprisals. Other Gadhafi loyalists have fled by boat to Tunisia in recent days to avoid surrendering to rebel fighters.
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Tensions in the South China Sea over territorial disputes are rising once again with China clashing with Vietnam and the Philippines recently. The disputes come as the United States and ASEAN try to help those with claims in the resource rich waters resolve their differences through dialogue and avoid the use of force or threats.
At a rare protest rally on Sunday in Vietnam, hundreds converged on the Chinese Embassy to blast Beijing for its recent alleged aggressions in the South China Sea. Vietnam says a Chinese vessel intentionally cut a submerged cable of a Vietnamese oil survey ship last month while it was conducting seismic tests.
The Philippines has also reported renewed territorial disputes, accusing China of unloading building materials and putting up military posts on reefs claimed by Manila. China defends its actions and says they are completely justified.
On Sunday, speaking at a regional defense forum in Singapore, China's Defense Minister Liang Guanglie claimed the recent flare ups with Vietnam and the Philippines were now under control. "There has always been freedom to navigate in the South China Sea. No one owns it. The overall situation in the area is stable," he said.
Dean Cheng, an Asia defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington says while China may not be shooting anyone, it's actions are provocative and put lives in danger. "[China] seem[s] to be engaging in a broad-based push to lay claim to the entire region and they don't seem to care whose toes they are stepping on," he said.
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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN has been working with China to reach an agreement on a code of conduct for the South China Sea.
Speaking at the same conference on Sunday, Vietnam's Deputy Minister of Defense Ngyuen Chi Vinh says China's cooperation is crucial and adds Vietnam's resolve is firm. "The consistent unwavering position of our party and state is that we will use all means to protect our sovereignty," he said.
The South China Sea is a major shipping lane and is believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves. It is claimed by several countries including Brunei, Malaysia, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
The United States has offered to facilitate territorial disputes between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors.
Speaking in Washington last week, Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell says the U.S. continues to promote dialogue between the disputing parties. "We discourage a resort to violence in these circumstances or threats and we want to see a process of dialogue emerge. We communicate intensively and privately with a variety of states associated with the South China Seas and I think we are going to continue to do that as we go forward," he said.
China prefers to discuss disputes one on one with other claimants. And, until recently Beijing appeared to be easing off in its assertions of territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Heritage Foundation analyst Dean Cheng says the recent uptick in tensions may be a sign Beijing is testing the waters with Vietnam or the United States. He points out China's actions follow a string of summits between China and the United States, including between President Hu Jintao and Barack Obama in January. "This may well be a test. To see - ok- we've had these summits, we've said that we want better relations: Are you going to jeopardize that promise of better relations now by interacting on behalf of the Southeast Asians or with the Southeast Asians over issues the Chinese feel is their territorial rights," he said.
Cheng says the increase in tensions could also be related to China's upcoming leadership transition in 2012. Chinese President Hu Jintao steps down from office next year and Cheng says it could be that the incoming government and outgoing government feel they have no choice but to take a stand and make a point that this is China's territory.
Over the past week, U.S. officials have stressed Washington's commitment to Asia, in particular Southeast Asia, and their willingness to work together with China in the region. China says it too is committed to peacefully resolving disputes in the region.
However, from the streets of Hanoi, it appears that resolution may still be a long way off.
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Just hours after Pakistan said one of the country's most wanted terrorist leaders had been killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike, a bomb blast in the northwest region of the country has killed six people.
Police say the explosion Sunday at a bus stop in Matani, a town near the city of Peshawar, wounded at least 10 people.
On Saturday, Pakistani intelligence sources said that senior al-Qaida leader Ilyas Kashmiri died along with eight other militants in an attack on a location in South Waziristan.
Kashmiri's own militant group, Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, or HUJI, confirmed his death in a fax to news organizations, saying Kashmiri was "martyred" Friday.
The United States had designated Kashmiri a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" and offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Intelligence officials regarded Kashmiri as one of the most dangerous and highly trained terrorist operatives. Pakistani officials suspected him of masterminding last month's attack on a naval base in Karachi, in which a handful of militants held off Pakistani forces for about 17 hours.
Officials have also tied Kashmiri to the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people. The U.S. blames Kashmiri's group for the March 2006 bombing of the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed four people and wounded 48 others. A U.S. grand jury indicted Kashmiri in 2010 in connection with a plot to attack a Danish newspaper.
This is not the first time Pakistani officials have said Kashmiri was killed. They previously said he had been killed in a suspected drone strike in 2009.
Kashmiri's killing comes about a month after U.S. special forces entered Pakistan and killed al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden in his hideout near Islamabad.
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Police in Bangladesh have detained dozens of opposition demonstrators during a nationwide anti-government strike in the capital, Dhaka.
Thousands of police and security personnel were deployed around the country Sunday as supporters of the main opposition Bangladesh National Party held a strike in protest of the government's attempt to change the constitution.
Three bombs exploded in the capital during the strike, leaving one person wounded, while in other parts of the country at least 20 activists were injured in scuffles with police.
Authorities detained at least 60 opposition activists in the capital and elsewhere in the country as they attempted to hold street protests.
The strike was called after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League party announced plans to repeal a provision that requires it to hand over power at the end of its term to a caretaker government while elections take place.
Officials in Germany say they believe the deadly E.coli outbreak that has killed 22 people in Germany and Sweden is linked to locally grown bean sprouts.
Lower Saxony state agriculture minister Gert Lindemann told reporters Sunday that definitive test results will be available Monday. He recommended that people in northern Germany stop eating bean sprouts immediately.
He said a company in the Uelzen region has been shut down as the likely source of the contamination.
Earlier Sunday, health authorities reported the deaths of an additional three people in Germany, bringing the death toll to 22. Except for one woman who died in Sweden after a visit to Germany, all of the fatalities have been within German borders.
Health authorities say about 2,000 people, most of them in Germany, have been infected. Ten other European nations and the United States have reported 90 infected people, nearly all of whom have recently been in northern Germany.
The outbreak is the deadliest in modern history to involve E. coli, and appears to be the second- or third-largest in terms of the number of people who have become ill. Scientists say the bacteria is a previously unknown genetic recombination of two different E. coli strains.
Symptoms of E. coli infection include stomach cramps, diarrhea, fever and vomiting.
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Portugal's opposition has unseated the ruling Socialists in the troubled country's parliamentary election.
With all votes counted except those cast by Portuguese living overseas, official results give the conservative Social Democrats 105 seats and the Socialists 73 seats.
Outgoing Prime Minister Jose Socrates conceded defeat earlier Sunday after television exit polls gave the Social Democrats an insurmountable lead. He says he will also step down as Socialist Party leader.
Social Democratic leader Pedro Passos Coelho will likely become the new prime minister and form a coalition government with the conservative Popular Party.
Mr. Socrates triggered Sunday's early election after announcing his resignation in March, when parliament rejected his economic reform plans and more spending cuts.
The country was then forced to turn to the European Union and International Monetary Fund for a $110 billion bailout, a move Mr. Socrates was trying to avoid.
Portugal is burdened with a huge debt, a shrinking economy, and massive unemployment.
It is the third troubled EU economy, after Greece and Ireland, to need a bailout in the past year.
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Partial results in Peru's presidential run-off elections Sunday show former army officer Ollanta Humala emerging as the winner over the daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori.
A count of selected ballots by Lima-based researcher Ipsos-Apoyo found Humala leading with 51.5 percent of the vote, over Fujimori's 48.5 percent.
Participating in elections is mandatory for Peru's nearly 20 million eligible voters.
In the first round of balloting in April, Humala won 32 percent of the vote, falling short of the 50 percent margin needed for an outright win. Keiko Fujimori, a conservative candidate, took 24 percent.
Some voters are concerned that as president, Keiko Fujimori would try to free her father, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in death squad killings in the 1990s. Keiko Fujimori has apologized for mistakes and crimes committed while her father was president from 1990 to 2000.
Humala led an uprising against Alberto Fujimori in 2000, but lost a run-off election to current President Alan Garcia in 2006. Humala was outspoken during that campaign about his admiration for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but he has since distanced himself from the leftist leader.
Much of the current presidential campaign has focused on continuing Peru's rapid economic growth of recent years, while ensuring that the poor also see some of that increased prosperity.
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North Sudan's government has rejected a call from the U.N. Security Council to pull its troops out of the disputed Abyei region.
On Friday, the Council condemned the north's occupation of Abyei, describing it as a "serious violation" of the 2005 peace deal that ended Sudan's north-south civil war.
The north's foreign minister, Ali Ahmad Karti, responded late Saturday, saying the north cannot be asked to withdraw from Abyei because it is Sudanese territory.
Both north and south Sudan claim ownership of Abyei, an oil-rich land on the north-south border.
In a separate development, the United Nations says fighting broke out Sunday in the state of South Kordofan, also on the north-south border. A U.N. spokesman in Khartoum, Hua Jiang, reports an attack on a police station in the town of Kadugli and shooting in the village of Umm Dorain.
She says U.N. peacekeepers have been sent to investigate.
The events of the past two weeks have raised fears of a new civil war in Sudan.
Last week, the north Sudan army demanded that southern troops in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states leave immediately. A southern army spokesman, Philip Aguer, denied that southern soldiers were in either state.
The northern army says Sunday's Umm Dorain incident stemmed from an individual soldier firing at random, and said the situation is now under control. It had no comment on the alleged attack in Kadugli.
The north's May 21 seizure of Abyei occurred just a few weeks before south Sudan is to formally declare independence from Khartoum.
The south voted to split from the north in a January referendum. Abyei was scheduled to hold a separate referendum on which region to join, but the poll never happened because the sides could not agree on who was eligible to vote.
Tens of thousands of Abyei residents fled the area after the northern takeover, and witnesses have reported widespread destruction of huts and buildings in Abyei's main town. The Satellite Sentinel Project, which monitors Sudan through satellite images, has accused the north of conducting "ethnic cleansing" in the area.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
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Hundreds of demonstrators in Vietnam gathered at the Chinese embassy in Hanoi Sunday, demanding that China stay out of waters claimed by Vietnam.
Police allowed the mostly young demonstrators to protest peacefully for awhile before dispersing them.
The rare demonstration came after Vietnamese officials said a Chinese patrol vessel intentionally cut a submerged cable last month, towed by a ship operated by the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group. The survey ship was conducting seismic tests in disputed waters in the South China Sea.
Vietnam's Foreign Affairs Ministry accused Beijing of violating Vietnam's sovereignty right to its continental shelf, while China responded that it opposes Vietnam's exploration for oil and gas in what Beijing called China's jurisdictional area.
China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all claim South China Sea territories, which are thought to hold untapped oil and gas reserves.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been seeking a peaceful solution to the competing claims amid increasingly assertive actions by China.
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Yemen's president, wounded Friday in a rocket attack on his compound, had survived three decades of challenges to his rule before injuries forced him to leave for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh had ruled Yemen since the country's unification in 1990. He had served as leader of North Yemen since 1978 and he played a key role in the merger between the North and the communist South.
Saleh was one of Yemen's longest-serving leaders. He was re-elected to a seven-year term in 2006.
Saleh was challenged by al-Qaida militants, Shi'ite Zaidi rebels and anti-government protesters during his time in office.
He started his career in Yemen's military, where he rose through the ranks. He fought in a civil war that began in 1962.
Saleh is from a tribal branch that is part of the al-Ahmar family. However, tribal chief Sadiq al-Ahmar emerged as one of his most prominent challengers after anti-government unrest erupted in January.
In April, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council presented Saleh with a plan designed to end Yemen's unrest by providing for a timetable for Saleh to leave office and to clear the way for new elections. He declined to sign the agreement, even after several attempts by Gulf leaders to broker an end to the crisis.
Now, his vice president is in charge while Saleh undergoes treatment in Saudi Arabia for his wounds.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is retiring at the end of the month, arrived in southern Afghanistan Sunday to say goodbye to American troops fighting to defeat Taliban insurgents.
Gates' visit comes at the same time as U.S. President Barack Obama is considering the scale and pace of troop withdrawals planned to start next month.
Speaking to troops at a base in southern Helmand province, Gates said he would prefer that support troops, not combat soldiers, be pulled out first. He said earlier that only modest reductions to troop levels would be made over the next few months.
The defense secretary warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai that his country needs to increase security, and that failure to do so would put the smooth withdrawal of U.S. forces at risk.
On Saturday at a security conference in Singapore, Gates said there could be peace talks with the Taliban within a year. He said the talks would be a result of NATO's ground advances in Afghanistan that have put pressure on the insurgents.
It has been nearly 10 years since U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban government and go after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
U.S. special forces killed bin Laden last month during a raid in neighboring Pakistan. The U.S.-Afghan relationship has become more tense, with Afghan President Karzai repeatedly criticizing the U.S. and NATO for killing civilians during attacks on militants.
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