Syria: Arab League monitors say they cannot stop the killing 2.37pm: The activist group the Local Coordination Committee in Syria claimed 20 soldiers have defected in the southern province of Deraa. It said the group included 10 snipers who were deployed on rooftops to kill protesters. Earlier this week around 15 soldiers in Deraa announced their defection in a video. It is unclear if this is the same group. The LCC also claimed the number of people killed today has increased to 12, including two defected soldiers. 2.27pm: A hard-line Iranian newspaper calls today for retaliation against Israel, which it accuses of being behind the killing of a scientist in Tehran yesterday. A column in the Kayhan newspaper by editor Hossein Shariatmadari asked why Iran did not avenge the death of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan by striking Israel, according to AP. Shariatmadari is quoted as writing: Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz in his recent remarks spoke about damaging Iran's nuclear program. Assassinations of Israeli military and officials are easily possible Meanwhile the US has key support from Japan for tough oil sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, Reuters reports. Japan pledged to take concrete action to cut Iranian oil imports after visiting US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged Tokyo, a major importer, to help deprive Iran of vital oil revenues. In Iran, sanctions are biting, with the rial currency losing 20 percent of value against the dollar in the past week. 2.16pm: Anwar Malek, the Algerian who quit the Arab League's monitoring team this week, said many of his former colleagues shared his concerns, and some had also quit. Reuters reports: I cannot specify a number, but many. When you talk to them their anger is clear," he told Reuters by telephone, adding that many could not leave because of orders from their governments. He said a Moroccan legal specialist, an aid worker from Djibouti and an Egyptian had also left the mission. Their departures could not immediately be confirmed. But another monitor, who asked not to be named, told Reuters he planned to leave Syria on Friday. "The mission does not serve the citizens," he said. It doesn't serve anything. 1.49pm: Yemeni's are taking a part in day without Qat - the mild stimulated chewed by more half the population. The campaign is designed to highlight the detrimental effects on Yemen's agriculture, economy, health and society, according to a blogpost on Global Voices. The post says: "Massive time and resources are wasted to chewing this cursed plant, paralysing Yemenis to think or work towards building Yemen." Here's one of many videos to raise awareness campaign. Global Voices says: The campaign was a collaborative effort of many people tapping on keyboards, behind screens, on who deeply care about Yemen's well being, transcending to people in the streets of Yemen who made it a reality. It is unclear how wide the take up of the campaign has been in Yemen itself. Earlier this week, the Dutch government pledged to ban Qat, to curb its use and stop people re-exporting it to other European countries. 1.23pm: Hundreds of Syrian and foreign activists are trying to cross into Syria from Turkey and Jordan to take humanitarian aid to the areas worst-hit by the crisis. On its website, the Freedom Convoy said: Our aim is ... to deliver humanitarian aid to the families in the afflicted areas that suffer from daily brutal bombing and totally unacceptable living conditions. Up to 150 activists, brought together by a campaign on the social networking website Facebook, left the southeastern city of Gaziantep today in buses and cars, carrying token relief supplies of blankets, medicine and food, Reuters reported. Group member Bilal Dalati told Voice of America he was protesting because his relatives were being killed. Just last week I lost a cousin, an immediate cousin of mine. He got shot in the area of Zabadani. It's heartbreaking. You know, those people are dying. They're my people. People that I was, you know, associated with for most of my life, or half of life, before I traveled to the U.S. Voice of America reports: Organizers say activists have traveled to Turkey's southeastern province of Gaziantep, mostly from European countries and from the United States in a show of support for the people of Syria. At a news conference, Zena Adi, who said she has recently fled Syria, described the situation in the restive country. There are entire towns in Syria that don't have electricity, that don't have the oil to run their cars or to heat their homes. People don't have food. The towns are under siege, surrounded. When someone tries to bring in food, it's thrown on the side of the street. Organizers say the Freedom Convoy has brought truckloads of food, medical aid and supplies that the activists will try to get across the border into Syria. If Syrian authorities refuse to let them cross, they intend on pitching tents and camping out in a three-day protest. 1.07pm: The French government is not alone in calling for an investigation into the attack in Homs yesterday. Nadim Houry, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, has also called for an independent, preferably international, investigation, according to AP. Yesterday's case of the killing of the French journalist raises a number of questions, who launched the attacks, what was the purpose. The answer is we don't know. So at this point, what's important is again to launch a credible investigation. Wissam Tarif, a campaigner for the online global activist group, Avaaz, also called the official version into question. The journalists were attacked in a heavily militarized regime stronghold it would be hugely difficult for any armed opposition to penetrate the area and launch such a deadly attack. Some parts of the French press are also raising concerns. Europe 1 writes that "the Syrian context does not help to dissipate doubt." First of all because it is impossible to know who fired the shell or the mortar which killed Gilles Jacquier. Also because a very restricted journalist trip by an authoritarian regime always evokes heavy suspicions of manipulation. And, finally, because Syria has often been accused of giving its secret services a lot of freedom, notably in Lebanon, which reinforces the suspicion rather more. 12.40pm: Thierry Thullier, editorial director of France Télévisions, is travelling to Syria today along with the two editors of Envoyé spécial, the France 2 programme for which Jacquier worked. In a message posted earlier this morning by Celia Mériguet, editor-in-chief of FTVi, said the purpose of their trip was to "bring back to France the cameraman Christophe Kenck, the photographer wife and the body of the journalist, which is at the French hospital in Damascus." A doctor and a psychologist is accompanying them. They will take care of the two survivors, who are in shock. Mort de Gilles Jacquier: la réaction de France 2 by Nouvelobs Mériguet said they could say nothing more about the circumstances of the attack in which Jacquier was killed. Last night Thullier gave an indication as to how unclear the details remain. As far as the circumstances are concerned, they have not yet been confirmed. We had Christophe Kenck, the other member of the team, on the phone from the hospital, and he told us that they had come under fire- was it was mortar fire or rocket fire? We don't know for the moment. Where did the fire come from? We don't know that, either. 12.37pm: Syrian activists in Paris say they were prevented by police from placing a tribute to Gilles Jacquier at the Syrian Cultural Centre in Paris. The identities of the people in this video could not be immediately established. In the clip the the man says: We have come here to the Syrian Cultural Centre to pay tribute to our friend Gilles Jacquier who died for truth. He went to Homs in Syria, to show the reality to the world, and he was killed in a cowardly and savage way by the regime. He died fighting for an ideal; he died fighting for the truth; he died doing his job. Today we wanted to leave a picture of him at the Syrian Cultural Centre representing the crime of Bashar al-Assad's regime and we were surprised to see before us the police and a very significant security presence...protecting the place and who prevented us from putting up this photo in hommage to Gilles Jacquier. We would like to express our surprise at this and we would like an explication for why we have been prevented from paying a simple tribute to this journalist, this hero. 12.01pm: Here's a summary of events so far today: One of the journalists who witnessed the attack that killed French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, said the incident was a "trap." Jacques Duplessy said "we were royally manipulated" and said state media response was suspiciously swift. France, which has demanded an investigation into the attack, sent its Syria ambassador, Eric Chevallier, to Homs to inspect the scene. Russia claims that some Nato countries are preparing military intervention in Syria. Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Security Council, said: "We are receiving information that Nato members and some Persian Gulf states, working under the 'Libyan scenario', intend to move from indirect intervention in Syria to direct military intervention." Activists said the security forces have killed six people in Syria so far today. The Syrian Revolution General Commission said one of those killed was a soldier who died under torture in Hama after refusing to fire at protesters. A second Arab League monitor is poised to quit in protest at the failure of the mission, according to Reuters. The unnamed monitor said: "The Syrian authorities have exploited the weakness in the performance of the delegation to not respond. There is no real response on the ground. Human Rights Watch has urged the Arab League to condemn the Syrian security forces for shooting peaceful protesters who were attempting to reach its observers in the northern city of Jisr al-Shughur. Anna Neistat, its associate emergencies director said: "Such incidents, and the ever rising death toll, clearly demonstrate that the presence of Arab League observers has done little to compel the Syrian authorities to stop their crimes." Saudi Arabia David Cameron is to travel to the Saudi capital for talks with King Abdullah, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. It is unclear what the two leaders will discuss. Scotland Yard has opened a criminal investigation into secret MI6 rendition operations that resulted in leading Libyan dissidents being abducted and flown to Tripoli, where they were subsequently tortured in Muammar Gaddafi's prisons. The announcement came as the Metropolitan police and the director of public prosecutions, Kier Starmer, said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute individual MI5 or MI6 agents following lengthy investigations into allegations of British complicity in the torture of terrorism suspcts in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A UN envoy is in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a to review the implementation of agreement for president Ali Abdullah Saleh to stand down. Jamal Benomar said there are still "obstacles and challenges" to the deal. The trial has begun in Bahrain's capital, Manama, of five police officers implicated in the death in custody of a blogger last year, the BBC reports. Zakariya Rashid Hassan al-Ashiri died on 9 April, seven days after he had been arrested as part of a crackdown on pro-democracy activists in the kingdom. 11.49am: The official version of Wednesday's attack in Homs - that it was carried out by armed opposition fighters - has been publicly questioned this morning by one of the journalists on the government trip. Speaking to Europe 1 radio, Jacques Duplessy said he wondered if the entire incident had been a "trap." I think we were royally manipulated. It wasn't a freak incident at all because after those four shells, there was nothing more. It was over: no attack, no shooting. Duplessy said he was suspicious of the Syrian state media's rapid response. Syrian television was everywhere- three cameras. They filmed everything...One wonders if it was actually a trap, if it wasn't a deliberate attack on journalists. He added: "Of course, we know nothing. We have no proof. Thierry Thuillier, head of news at France Télévisions, ruled out such ideas. "It seems to me to be really premature to be talking of manipulation," he said. 11.40am: The activist group, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, has named five people it says were killed by the security forces today. It said three people were killed in Homs, and a soldier was tortured to death for refusing to fire against protesters in Hama. A fifth man died from wounds in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, scene of heavy gunfire on Tuesday. The reports cannot be independently verified. 11.24am: Arab League observers and France's ambassador to Syria, Eric Chevallier, have visited the site of the attack in Homs that killed a French journalist and eight others, CNN reports. It points out that Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN, tweeted this reaction. Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague had a similar reaction: These deaths highlight once again the terrible price being paid by the people of Homs, as well as the courage of journalists who take great personal risks to bring to light what is happening to the people of Syria. We support the Arab League's efforts to stop the killing and repression. We urge the Syrian regime to implement in full its commitments to the Arab League on 2 November. It must end the violence, withdraw troops from the streets, release all detainees and engage in a meaningful dialogue with opposition groups. We call again on president Assad to step down and heed the will of the Syrian people. 11.16am: Josef Eid, an AFP photographer who was also in Jacquier's group of journalists, has described seeing Gilles Jacquier "lying in a pool of blood" in Homs yesterday. He is quoted in the France Soir newspaper as saying: We arrived at Homs surrounded by the government minders. All the journalists insisted on being able to go out and about. The authorities decided to take us to Hadara, an Alawite neighbourhood. The first shell fell on a house while we were interviewing pro-Assad protesters who had followed us to this house. We got up onto the roof. In the meantime a second shell fell on the building and, as I was going back down, I saw people dead on the ground and I started to photograph them. The other journalists went down to see what was happening and those that went out of the building felt the full force of the third shell. In front of the building, the pro-Assad protesters had also been hit. As I went down, I saw Gilles lying in a pool of blood. An ambulance arrived and I jumped inside. At the hospital it was total chaos. Another injured peron was arriving every very five minutes. Dutch journalist Steven Vassenar suffered eye injuries, he added. 11.02am: Christophe Kenck, the France 2 cameraman, has recounted the multiple shelling in Homs that led to his colleague's death yesterday. Le Monde quotes him saying: They took us on a tour of the town; we came across a mini-demo on a road. We got out; we started shooting [film]. And then the first mortar fell about 500 metres from the demo, so panic broke out. Afterwards a second mortar blast hit a school- but it was empty. Then there was a third mortar blast. I felt the impact as I was 10 metres away. I was lightly injured but I'm fine. And then the fourth mortar blast fell on a building where Gilles Jacquier had sheltered. I got to the building and we put Gilles in a taxi to take him to hospital, but when I saw Gilles come out with his wife in tears, I knew he had died on the spot. It is understood that Jacquier's partner was on the trip with him. Kenck adds: He had tried to protect himself, so he had the right reaction. It was me who had the wrong reaction, in inverted commas of course, because I was outside- I was filming shots of the people who had been injured, the shouting. Today we have lost a true professional, and a friend as well. 10.44am: David Cameron is to travel to the Saudi capital for talks with King Abdullah, the Saudi Press Agency reported. Characteristically the agency said very little about what would be discussed. The meeting is expected to focus on bilateral relations and ways to promote them in addition to discussing regional and international issues of common interest. Possible topics for discussion include Syria, Iran and arm's sales, but probably not the crackdown on the unrest in Bahrain. 9.52am: Syria's Ministry of Information says the killing of French journalist Gilles Jacquier highlights the terrorism that Syria is exposed to. An interestingly-worded report by the state news agency, Sana, will fuel suspicions that the Syrian government was to blame for the attack. The field tour of the foreign media delegation in Homs comes in the framework of Syria's admission for the mass media to move freely in different Syrian regions and convey the events to the world public opinion. Foreign journalists have not been given unfettered access to Syria. The press trip to Homs was heavily controlled, according to the Guardian's Ian Black who was on separate escorted trip to Homs on Wednesday. 9.40am: Russia claims that some Nato countries are preparing military intervention in Syria. Bloomberg quoted Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russian Security Council telling Inferfax: We are receiving information that NATO members and some Persian Gulf states, working under the 'Libyan scenario', intend to move from indirect intervention in Syria to direct military intervention. 8.34am: Welcome to Middle East Live. Syria remains the main focus amid growing doubts about the future of Arab League mission and after the killing of the first foreign journalist since the uprising began. Earlier Anwar Malek, an Algerian member of the team, resigned saying the mission was becoming a farce. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has held talks with Qatar's prime minister, Hamed bin Jassem on the Arab League's next move on Syria. After the meeting she said: I think that it's clear to both the prime minister and myself that the monitoring mission should not continue indefinitely. We cannot permit President Assad and his regime to have impunity. Syrians deserve a peaceful transition. We are looking to work with the Arab League when the current monitoring mission expires on 19 January. The death of an acclaimed French television correspondent Gilles Jacquier was a stark reminder of what are routine dangers for ordinary people in the war in Syria, writes Ian Black from Homs. The French authorities have demanded an investigation into the killing. "Gilles Jacquier was just doing his journalist's job by covering the violent events in Syria resulting from the regime's unacceptable repression of the population," said President Nicolas Sarkozy. Jacquier, was a highly respected special correspondent for France's acclaimed flagship documentary programme, Envoyé Spécial, on the state TV channel France 2. He spent two decades covering numerous conflicts, from Algeria in the 1990s to Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, the Balkans and the Arab spring.He received the French Pulitzer prize equivalent, the Prix Albert Londres, in 2003 for his work on the second intifada after he shot through his bullet-proof vest. Like many activists, blogger Ammar Abdulhamid believes the regime was behind the attack. It should also be obvious that protesters would never risk hurting the very people who are taking their story to the world, seeing that almost every story filed by foreign journalists who were allowed access to the country has served to corroborate the protesters' version of events. The Arab League should condemn the Syrian security forces for shooting peaceful protesters who were attempting to reach its observers in the northern city of Jisr al-Shughur, according to Human Rights Watch. Anna Neistat, associate emergencies director, said: "Such incidents, and the ever rising death toll, clearly demonstrate that the presence of Arab League observers has done little to compel the Syrian authorities to stop their crimes." Egypt's interim government is to resume talks with the International Monetary Fund over an emergency $3bn (£2bn) credit facility amid signs of a deepening crisis in its hard-hit economy, Peter Beaumont in Cairo reports. Former US president Jimmy Carter says he doubts Egypt's general will fully submit to the authority of the civilian democracy they had promised to install, the New York Times reports. After meeting Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, leader of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Carter said: "I don't think the SCAF is going to turn over full responsibility to the civilian government. There are going to be some privileges of the military that would probably be protected. Scaf has declared 25 January a national holiday to mark the first anniversary of the Egypt revolution, in an attempt to try to head off further protests. There will also be a football match between Egypt and Tunisia according to Egyptian Chronicles.