Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond): Can You "Disappear" All the Protesters?

2030 GMT: Big news from Libya tonight as the opposition National Transition Council has announced the death of its military commander, General Abdel Fattah Younes and two other officers.

The three men appear to have been slain by an assassination squad, possibly a "sleeper cell", in the opposition centre of Benghazi.

Earlier today the opposition had announced that Younes, the former Minister of Interior under Muammar Qaddafi, was going to be detained for questioning over his family's ties to the regime. Tonight the Council said Younes had been killed before he was interrogated.

The Council has announced three days of mourning for the slain commander.

1940 GMT: Back from a break to find claimed footage of a general strike today in Daraa in southern Syria:

And in Hama:

1630 GMT: Planes of the Yemeni regime have carried out strikes on armed tribesmen who seized control of part of a training facility for the country’s Republican Guards north of the capital Sana’a.

A resident said dozens of people were killed in the clash at the al-Samaa camp.

The government accused the opposition Al-Islah party of involvement in the raid, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Sana’a. The Ministry of Defense said on its website that the army suffered “heavy losses” and that the attackers also sought to gain control of Sana’a international airport.

1540 GMT: The Libyan opposition has confirmed that it has detained its military commander, former Minister of Interior Abdel Fattah Younes, for questioning on suspicion that his family might still have ties to regime.

Opposition military spokesman Mohammed al-Rijali said Younes was taken from his operations room near the frontline to the opposition centre in the eastern city of Benghazi.

1530 GMT: Opposition forces say they seized three small towns and advanced on others in their offensive in western Libya near the Tunisian border.

A spokesman said.four insurgent fighters were killed and several wounded in the push, in which 18 regime troops were captured.

The spokesman claimed regime troops had been driven from Jawsh, Ghazaia, and Takut. Earlier in the day, there were reports that Qaddafi forces had pushed the insurgents out of Jawsh and that there was no resolution in Ghazaia (see 1220 GMT).

Jawsh is about 150 kilometres (95 miles) east of the Tunisian border on a main road to Tripoli. Ghazaia, closer to the Tunisian border, has been a base for shelling by regime troops of the opposition-held border town of Nalut.

1440 GMT: The Minister of Health has said former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be put on trial in Cairo next Wednesday.

The minister said Mubarak, who is under arrest at a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh, is healthy enough to be moved to the capital, and a hall at Cairo's Conference Center is being prepared for the trial.

Mubarak is charged with corruption and ordering the killing of protesters during the uprising against him in January and February.

Mubarak will be tried alongside his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, and former Minister of Interior Minister Habib al-Adly.

1220 GMT: The situation in Libya's western mountains is muddled --- regime forces apparently have launched a counter-offensive in Al-Jawsh, according to Al Jazeera's James Bays. Insurgents deny that, under fire from Grad rockets, they retreated --- it was "a strategic withdrawal".

Two hours away in the mountains, the opposition push for al-Ghazaia is still inconclusive.

1120 GMT: In Egypt, the head of the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, has declared that foreign groups are meddling and stirring up unrest: "There are foreign players who feed and set up specific projects that some individuals carry out domestically, without understanding."

Addressing officers, Tantawi continued, "It is possible that there is lack of understanding, that foreign players are pushing the people into inappropriate directions," as they "did not want stability for Egypt".

More than 300 pro-reforms were injured last Saturday when a march from Tahrir Square to Ministry of Defense headquarters was challenged by opponents with knives, sticks, and and firebombs.

Tantawi insisted, "It was the people who intervened and confronted this [demonstration]," declaring that "the armed forces have protected the revolution".

1110 GMT: Back from an academic break to find this Al Jazeera English summary of the planned opposition offensive in western Libya:

And the claims of the opposition National Transitional Council's spokesman Guma el-Gamaty: "If the freedom fighters make victory today and take over all these towns and villages then it will be a significant strategic shift."

El-Gamaty said the attack, which began in early morning, had already scores successes:

It is going very well, they have already captured one or two of these villages....By the end of the day we could see a major victory for the freedom fighters....It is not wishful thinking, the freedom fighters have put together a massive force in terms of numbers of fighters and arms. They have multi-rocket launchers, they have tanks, they have heavy cannon and they are well prepared and have put together a very detailed plan.

0835 GMT: And still more footage emerges from demonstrations last night in Syria --- two clips of protests in and near Hama:

Deir Ez Zor in the northeast:

0545 GMT: We are also watching western Libya this morning. Reports last night indicated opposition forces were looking to move near Nalut and and in the Nafusa Mountains after heavy shelling of al-Ghazaia.

0500 GMT: The most striking report this morning comes from the activist group Avaaz, which claims that Syrian forces have been seizing one person every hour in a recent crackdown and holding the detainees in secret.

Avaaz says 2,918 people have been "forcibly disappeared" since the uprising began in Syria on 15 March. The imprisonment of an additional 12,617 people has been declared to family members. 

Yet, for all the thousands who have been seized, the protests seem to be gathering momentum. In a flurry of footage we received last night, this image was the most compelling --- demonstrators in Binnish in northeast Syria use candles for the message to President Assad, "Welcome Ramadan, go away Bashar!" 

The holy month of Ramadan begins on Monday.

And the persistence of protest is not just in Syria. The footage that streamed in last night included a series of clips of small but widespread challenges to the regime in Bahrain. A march in Al Dair: