Four suspected Egyptian Islamists were killed south of Cairo early Friday while preparing explosives on a farm owned by a senior member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, police said.

The blast in a village in the rural Fayoum province came hours after nine people were wounded when a small bomb went off in a train in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.

A Saudi security officer and a Yemeni soldier were killed in an attack on a border post between the two countries on Friday, officials said.

The interior ministry in Riyadh said a border security patrol came under fire near the Wadia post in the southern province of Sharura, killing the unit's chief.

Italy called Friday for the U.N.'s refugee agency to help the newly elected Libyan government deal with the huge flow of immigrants and asylum seekers setting off from its coasts for Europe.

"We have a record number of women, men and children arriving, 96 percent of the time from Libya," Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said in a press conference in Rome, just hours after another 800 boat migrants were rescued and taken to safety in southern Italy.

Iraqi Kurdish preparations for an independence referendum met with frustration in Washington, which stressed unity was essential to tackle a jihadist-led onslaught that risks "Syria-like chaos".

In a rare piece of positive news during the crisis, however, a group of 46 Indian nurses caught up in the conflict were to be freed, one of them told AFP.

Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric said Friday the failure of the new parliament to elect a speaker at its first session this week was a "regrettable failure," heaping pressure on Premier Nuri al-Maliki.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, along with the international community, has called on Iraq's bickering politicians to unify in the face of a Sunni militant onslaught that began last month, but Tuesday's parliamentary session ended in farce.

Egypt was on Friday mediating a potential ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, after a flare-up of violence across the border.

"There are continuing Egyptian efforts to return calm to the Gaza Strip, but no agreement has been reached yet," a Hamas official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

Thousands of Palestinians, some firing weapons into the air, took part Friday in the emotionally charged east Jerusalem funeral of a Palestinian teenager believed murdered by Israelis.

Chanting "with our blood and our spirit we shall sacrifice for the martyr," mourners carried the shrouded body of Mohammed Abu Khder, 16, through his neighborhood of Shuafat as flag-waving crowds thronged the narrow streets.

The jihadist Islamic State now fully controls all of Syria's main oil and gas fields, which are located in Deir Ezzor province next to Iraq, a monitoring group said.

IS declared an "Islamic caliphate" in areas it controls in Syria and Iraq, where it is spearheading an offensive against government troops.

A group of 46 Indian nurses trapped in an area of Iraq seized by Islamic militants were set to fly home after being freed from the rebel-held city of Mosul, Indian officials said Friday.

"Ultimately, it is hope that has triumphed," Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry, told reporters.

A U.S. teenager who agreed to marry a fighter from the militant network that is threatening to overrun Iraq has been arrested and charged with trying to help a foreign terror group.

Shannon Maureen Conley, 19, was arrested in April as she prepared to fly to Turkey to join the jihadist, who was fighting in Syria, according to court documents unsealed this week.