Besma Khalfaoui, Chokri Belaid's widow, has become a symbol of Tunisia's secular opposition and scourge of the ruling Islamists, waving her fingers in a victory sign just hours after her husband was killed.

On February 6, Tunisians saw the mother-of-two, her face lined with grief and her trousers still covered in blood, urging people not to react to her husband's assassination with violence, as she joined outraged protesters in central Tunis.

President Bashar Assad's regime has sent a letter to the United Nations blasting Turkey's "destructive" role in the conflict that has ravaged Syria for the past 23 months, state media reported Friday.

The Syrian foreign ministry's letter accuses Turkey of harboring "terrorists from al-Qaida's network", the SANA news agency said.

Finnish customs said Friday they had seized military equipment en route from Russia to Syria on board a Finnish ship docked at Helsinki's Vuosaari port in January.

During an inspection of the ship, customs officials discovered spare parts for tanks in a container on board the M/S Finnsun, Finnish Customs said in a statement.

Thousands of supporters of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi took to the street on Friday to denounce violence after weeks of bloody protests between police and anti-Morsi protesters.

The Islamist Construction and Development Party had called for the rally under the slogan "Together against violence", blaming the liberal-led opposition for unrest that has recently swept the country.

Palestinians around the West Bank on Friday staged solidarity events for prisoners held by Israel and on hunger strike, with dozens injured in clashes with Israeli security forces.

Near the West Bank city of Ramallah, some 3,000 Palestinians held a protest march to the Ofer military prison that erupted into violent clashes with soldiers, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Thousands of people in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq called on Friday for the government's fall amid a spike in violence that has accompanied a political stalemate two months before provincial polls.

The demonstrations, which have been ongoing for nearly two months, have steadfastly urged for the ouster of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki while decrying the alleged targeting of minority Sunnis by the Shiite-led authorities.

Syria's army and rebels were preparing Friday for a major battle for control of strategic airports in Aleppo, a watchdog said, four days after insurgents launched assaults on airbases in the northern province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said intermittent clashes were reported around Aleppo international airport, Nayrab airbase and another military complex as the two sides readied for a major fight.

Bulgaria on Friday expelled a visiting delegation from the Palestinian group Hamas, the head of the organisation that invited the lawmakers to the EU-member state told Agence France Presse.

Bulgarian security service agents "entered the hotel rooms of the three deputies early on Friday morning and drove them to the airport," said Mohd Abuasi of the Center for Middle East Studies.

A photo of Gazans taking two children and their father killed in an Israeli air strike for burial has won the 2013 World Press Photo award for Swedish photographer Paul Hansen, judges said Friday.

The staff shooter for the Dagens Nyheter daily took the image of the funeral procession carrying carrying two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her three-year-old brother Muhammad down an alley in Gaza City on November 20, 2012.

Turkish artillery struck back after a shell fired from neighboring Syria ploughed into Turkish territory without causing any casualties, the state-run news agency reported.

The shell fell near the town of Yayladag in Hatay province near the border with Syria and Turkish forces retaliated immediately, Anatolia said.