Iraq said on Saturday it will step up searches of Iranian flights via its airspace to Syria, days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry publicly criticized Baghdad for turning a blind eye to them.

But while Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's spokesman spoke of newly tightened restrictions on Iranian flights to Syria, the head of Iraq's civil aviation authority acknowledged that no planes had been searched since October.

The first direct flight connecting Egypt and Iran in more than 30 years took off from Cairo International Airport on Saturday, airport officials told Agence France Presse.

The Air Memphis plane, chartered by Egyptian businessman Ramy Lakah, is the first direct flight between the capitals since the two countries severed ties after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

A prison guard was killed and a colleague wounded in a gun attack in the port city of Aden, police said on Saturday, as southern Yemen observed a "civil disobedience" campaign called by separatists.

The overnight attack came as several district of the main southern city, including Mansura, Sheikh Othman and Crater, were brought to a virtual standstill by the protest action.

Protests by the unemployed in southern Algeria are raising the specter of rising unrest in the country's sensitive oil regions, and are increasingly attracting the attention of al-Qaida.

Algeria's vast, sparsely populated Sahara only holds 10 percent of the country's population but it is home to this North African country's enormous oil and gas reserves — the basis of the entire economy and the source of the government's power. Those who live there claim they aren't benefiting from that wealth, and can't get jobs with the oil companies.

The United States on Friday expressed concern about a rise in sexual violence and gang rapes in Egypt and condemned local politicians who have said the women are to blame.

The response came after a string of reports by Agence France Presse and other media outlets about women who are speaking out about rape and other sexual attacks inflicted by groups of men at demonstrations in the wake of the 2011 uprising.

Syrian rebels have seized a key town on a main highway between Damascus and the south in their latest advance in Daraa province on the border with Jordan, a watchdog said on Friday.

"Rebels seized control of Dael after destroying the three army checkpoints at the entrances to the town," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "The town is located on a main road linking Daraa to Damascus."

Clashes broke out on Friday in Cairo and Egypt's second city Alexandria between opponents and supporters of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, injuring 10 people, the official MENA news agency said.

The bloodiest clashes were in Alexandria where nine people were hurt and hospitalized after fighting broke out in the coastal city's Sidi Gaber district near offices of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group, MENA said, quoting health ministry official Khaled al-Khatib.

Dozens of angry Tunisians brandishing shoes protested Friday demanding the resignation of the minister of women's affairs, Sihem Badi, accusing her of failing to stand up to the ruling Islamists.

Badi has for months been strongly criticized by civil society activists over her ties with Ennahda, the Islamist party that heads the coalition government which secular opposition groups accuse of seeking to curtail women's rights.

Two British activists with a humanitarian convoy destined for the Gaza Strip were subjected to a brutal gang rape by five men in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, the deputy prime minister said Thursday.

The two women of Pakistani origin "were brutally raped in front of their father," Awadh al-Barassi said on his Facebook page, condemning "a horrible act."

Bahraini police used tear gas and sound bombs to disperse hundreds of protesters who took to the streets of Manama on Friday to demand the overthrow of the Sunni-led regime, witnesses said.

The protests came a day after Bahrain's main Shiite opposition group al-Wefaq warned of fresh protests across the kingdom unless a national dialogue with the regime leads to real reforms, namely a constitutional monarchy.