Mubarak, sons are detained

For almost three decades he wielded unquestioned power, a seemingly invincible figure ruling with a sense of privilege and ruthlessness that epitomized autocrats across the Middle East.

Even when mass protests improbably forced him from power in February, it appeared highly unlikely that Hosni Mubarak, long a key U.S. ally in a volatile region, would ever be held to account for allegations of corruption and abuse of office.

But that all changed Wednesday, when authorities in Cairo confirmed the detention of the former Egyptian president and his two sons, a move immediately hailed by many as a surprising but shrewd step by the ruling military council to calm protests in the world's most populous Arab nation.

"This is a landmark in the history of Egypt and the history of the Arab world," said a jubilant Alaa Al Aswany, a well-known novelist and pro-democracy activist.

All at once, a long-unimaginable spectacle -- a trio of Mubaraks under interrogation for corruption, abuse of power and other alleged crimes, including deadly violence against protesters -- seemed like it might become reality.

The long-elusive goal of accountability looms as potentially the next accomplishment of what people in Egypt simply call the Revolution, the 18 days of street protests that culminated in Mubarak's resignation Feb. 11.

Gamal Mubarak, a Western-educated banker and businessman, long considered a potential successor to his father, is under investigation for alleged financial crimes ranging from Cairo to Geneva to London.

Women, children and students took to the streets in Syria, lending their voices to a month-long uprising that President Bashar Assad insists is the work of a foreign conspiracy. The protest movement is posing an increasing threat to Assad's rule as it attracts an ever-wider following, with tens of thousands of people demanding political freedoms and an end to the decades-old emergency laws that extend state authority into nearly all aspects of Syrians' lives.

"We will not be humiliated!" shouted some 2,000 women and children who blocked a coastal road in northeastern Syria, where security forces and pro-government gunmen have cracked down on dissent in recent days. The protesters were demanding the release of hundreds of men who have been rounded up in the villages of Bayda and Beit Jnad.

Also Wednesday, about 500 students gathered at Damascus University in the capital and in Aleppo University in the north as young people joined the protests in increasing numbers.

Details coming out of Syria are sketchy because the government has placed severe restrictions on the media, limited access to trouble spots and expelled reporters. But witness accounts suggest an expansion of the protests, with a broader cross-section of society joining in.

Fighting broke out between rival military factions in Yemen's capital of Sanaa, leaving at least two people dead.