Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Unavoidable Change on the Ground

See also Saturday's Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: 10,000s March Outside Manama

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2128 GMT: Yemen. At least eight people have been killed by a US drone strike on two vehicles in Radaa in the centre of the country.

"Five were killed and eight injured and we are still investigating who these men are and in what way they were linked to al Qaeda," one official said.

Three women were also killed in the strike, a local tribal chief claimed. He said that the strike had targeted Abdulraouf al-Dahab, a local al-Qaeda leader, but that it failed to kill him.

Some tribesmen and military officials said that no fighters had been killed in the air strike, in which 14 civilians, including three women and three children, died. The officials said Sunday's airstrikes were based on faulty intelligence that the passengers were al-Qaeda members.

2101 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees has said 127 people have been killed today by security forces, including 69in Damascus and its suburbs and 36 in Hama Province.

Among the Damascus total are claimed mass deaths in Hazza and Erbeen. All but one of the Hama victims were reportedly in Al-Fan village.

An evening demonstration in Harasta near Damascus:

2041 GMT: Saudi Arabia. Prominent Saudi activist Mohammed al-Qahtani, facing up to five years in prison, has vowed to keep campaigning for human rights.

"I will not abandon my activities even if I receive a death sentence," Qahtani said a day after he appeared in court on charges of sowing sedition and rebelling against authorities.

The founder of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association continued, "I expect to get the harshest punishment. They have listed these charges against me to scare people."

Qahtani said the court adjourned the case, which began in June, without setting a new date, as it requested "further explanatory documents" in his defence.

Several other ACPRA members are also awaiting trial, including Abdullah al-Hamed and Abdel Karim al-Khodr. The assocation claims the kingdom is holding about 30,000 political prisoners.

2035 GMT: Bahrain. Claimed footage of police firing tear gas inside a beauty salon in Bilad Qadeem:

1708 GMT: Egypt. Minister of Defense Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has announced that 70 generals are to be retired.

The move follows President Morsi's replacement this summer of the previous Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff.

Six of the generals will keep their positions on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

1649 GMT: Syria. George Sabra, a senior member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said the organisation has agreed to the inclusion of more groups after a meeting in Stockholm on Saturday.

Sabra added that the SNC would vote later this month on its leadership.

"New currents of the opposition will join the SNC. There will be at least five or six new groups from inside and outside Syria," Sabra said.

1645 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees report that 107 people have been killed by security forces today, including 55 in Damascus and its suburbs, and 36 in Hama Province.

1605 GMT: Kurdistan. Wladimir van Wilgenburg writes for EA....

The Kurdish islamist Mullah Krekar --- who has survived arrests, imprisonment, frozen assets, restrictions on movement, and kidnap, deportation, and assassination attempts, and restrictions of movement --- has suffered a further legal setback.

Krekar has been serving a five-year sentence after allegedly issuing death threats against three fellow Kurds and a Norwegian politician. Last Wednesday, he was given another year by an Oslo court for trying to influence witnesses and encouraging criminal acts.

Krekar (real name Najmaddin Faraj Ahmed) was born in Sulaimani in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1954. He was one of the founders of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan (IMK) and a key member until the late 1990s when IMK split and Krekar created Ansar Al-Islam. He has been linked to terrorist activities by both the US and the United Nations and has praised Al Qa'eda leaders.

1431 GMT: Libya. A bomb exploded on Sunday in a busy shopping district in the second city Benghazi, killing the driver of the car carrying the device and critically injuring a passenger.

1423 GMT: Bahrain. The Ministry of Human Rights, facing criticism over the imprisonment of human rights activist Nabeel Rajab --- including a statement by three United Nations experts --- has issued a statement about his three-year sentence:

Bahrain respects Mr Rajab as a citizen defending human rights, as well as for his human rights activities. He was not prosecuted for expressing his opinion or exercising his legitimate freedoms and rights. He took part previously in tens of protests and activities and authorities did not act against him because his activities were within the law. However, when he broke the law, authorities had a legitimate right to prosecute him to protect the rights of others.

The issue in the case of Mr Rajab is not taking part in peaceful protests as was stated in a Press release on August 23. The real issue is not about him complying with the law and regulations that allow for peaceful protests. Bahrain witnesses dozens of peaceful protests and the ministry is ready to provide statistics for the distinguished experts upon their request.

Mr Rajab was accorded the right to a fair trial, as clearly evident from the presence of his lawyer throughout the judicial process; his right to appeal the sentence handed out to him; and the publicising of the court verdict in accordance with principles of transparency and accountability....

The Ministry argued that the UN experts relied "on distorted information" and implicitly criticised them for consider the case: "It hopes that now --- at a time of healing in the country --- external actors will contribute positively by encouraging all parties in Bahrain to recognise the importance of dialogue in order to reconcile the divisions in society created by last year's events."

1415 GMT: Syria. State TV has said four people were wounded in two explosions in Damascus near a security building in the Abu Rummana district, not far from the compound housing the army and air force headquarters near central Umayyad Square.

The Ahfad al-Rasul (Grandchildren of the Prophet) Brigade of the Free Syrian Army claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on Facebook. "This operation was carried out in response to the massacres in Darayya," said the statement, referring to the killing last week of at least 330 people in a town near Damascus.

Earlier in the day, State media said a car bomb had killed 15 people in southern suburb of the capital (see 1130 GMT).

1401 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees report that 67 people have been killed by security forces today, including 36 in Hama Province and 16 in Damascus and its suburbs.

1356 GMT: Egypt. The High Administrative Court has postponed consideration of a lawsuit Sunday calling for the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood, setting a new date of 9 October so it can consider appeals filed by the Islamist organisation.

Lawyer Shehata Ahmed Shehata initially bought the case, claiming that the Brotherhood had been unlawfully engaging in social and political activities for the last 80 years and had been officially banned as a political organisation in 1954.

1134 GMT: Syria. Authorities have given Robert Fisk of The Independent access to four prisoners:

Two gave unmistakable hints of brutal treatment after their first arrest. It took 10 minutes to persuade the prison's military governor – a grey-haired, middle-aged general in military fatigues --- and his shirt-sleeved intelligence officer to leave the room during our conversations. Incredibly, they abandoned their office so that we could speak alone to their captives. We refused later requests by the Syrian authorities for access to our tapes of the interviews.

Two of the men spoke of their recruitment by Islamist preachers, another of how Arab satellite channels had persuaded him to travel to Syria to make jihad. These were stories that the Syrian authorities obviously wanted us to hear, but the prisoners – who must have given their interrogators the same accounts – were clearly anxious to talk to us, if only to meet Westerners and alert us to their presence after months in captivity. The French-Algerian wolfed down a box of chicken and chips we gave him. One of the Syrians admitted he was kept in constant solitary confinement. We promised all four that we would give their names and details to the International Red Cross.

1130 GMT: Syria. State media are reporting that a car bomb near a Palestinian refugee camp in the Damascus suburb of al-Sbeineh has killed at least 15 people and wounded several. The blast has been blamed on an "armed terrorist group".

1030 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage of shelling of Yabroud in Damascus Province:

1025 GMT: Yemen. TEDx (Technology, Entertainment, and Design), the global conference organisation, has launched a website for Sanaa.

1010 GMT: Bahrain. Britain’s foremost school for training of military officers, Sandhurst, has accepted a £3 million ($4.75 million) donation from King Hamad.

The Kingdom and Sandhurst were in negotiations throughout 2011 before the money was sent in January 2012. Sandhurst wrotte a letter of thanks at the beginning of summer.

Sandhurst will name a sports hall, due to open early next year, and in the kingdom’s honour.

King Hamad was trained at the Surrey-based academy, as are a select group of Bahraini military personnel each year. A patron of the Sandhurst Foundation since 2007, the King donated a fee of £69,975 to the Foundation in 2011 and in 2012.

0730 GMT: Syria. Al Jazeera English's report on a march in Turkey in support of President Assad:

0610 GMT: Syria. We begin this morning with Al Jazeera English's report of the comments of the new United Natiions-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi: "Change is necessary, indispensable, unavoidable."

The issue is not whether there will be change but the type of change and how it will come about. While Brahimi was being cautious about any call for a transitional governmen without President Assad --- "It is too early to speak about who should go and who should stay. This is not a step backwards. Mr Assad is there and is the president of the present government" --- insurgents continued to alter the situation on the ground.

In one of the latest operations, insurgents appeared to have seized a military base near Al Bukamal in the northeast, seizing large stocks of weapons and ammunition and claiming the capture of 16 soldiers. Activists even raised the possibility that insurgents had taken shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles.

The operation put Brahimi's statement in a context where it risked being obsolete even before the envoy formally took up his office on Tuesday: "I call on parties inside Syria to halt the fighting."