The U.S. ambassador to Syria on Friday criticized Iran's "unhelpful" role in the Syrian conflict and appealed for more from Russia to help the refugees fleeing their war-torn homeland.

"Iran is playing a very unhelpful role in terms of moving Syria toward a political transition that its people demand," Robert Ford told reporters in Ankara, a day after meeting Syrian refugees in a Turkish border town.

Protests in Jordan against the results of a general election turned violent on Friday injuring four people, and forced police to fire tear gas to disperse demonstrators, an official said.

"Rioting that also saw attacks on houses and public property" wounded four people in the northern province of Irbid, its governor Khaled Abu Zayd told Petra news agency, adding that police intervened successfully breaking up the violence.

Bahraini riot police fired tear gas to disperse an unauthorized demonstration attended by hundreds of protesters in Manama on Friday, witnesses said.

The protest, called by the main Shiite opposition bloc al-Wefaq, chanted anti-regime slogans, including "Down (King) Hamad" -- in reference to the king of Bahrain.

Violence showed no sign of abating on Friday on Syrian battlefields as protesters slammed both the regime and rebels fighting to overthrow it.

The regime's air force launched air raids on several rebel-held towns, including in Damascus province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a broad network of activists, doctors and lawyers.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali is due to announce on Saturday the results of lengthy consultations on a reshuffle of Tunisia's cabinet, a government statement said.

Jebali, of the ruling Islamist party Ennahda, "will make a statement to reporters on the result of consultations with the political parties on a government reshuffle, at 1:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Saturday," the statement said.

A 31-year-old man appeared in a British court on Friday charged with providing financial support and supplies to his brother and another man who face trial for kidnapping two Western journalists in Syria.

Najul Islam, from east London, has been charged with assisting his brother Shajul Islam, a British trainee doctor, Jubayer Chowdhury and others to engage in acts of terrorism, police said in a statement.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Friday called on the international community to increase its assistance for the tide of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria.

"I urge once more a stepped-up world response to the Syrian crisis," he told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, Israel's newest political star, the post of foreign minister or finance minister in a new government, a newspaper reported on Friday.

Yesh Atid, a centrist party formed only nine months ago, stunned the political establishment by winning 19 seats in Tuesday's election, taking second place to Netanyahu's Likud-Beitenu list which suffered which a major blow, securing only 31 of the 120 seats in parliament.

Observers from the European Union on Friday praised as "transparent and credible" this week's Jordanian general election, after the Islamist opposition alleged it had been marred by fraud.

"Polling, counting and tabulation of results in the 23 January parliamentary election were, despite minor glitches, well-administered," said David Martin, head of the 80-strong EU mission.

France on Friday joined Britain, other European states and Australia in pulling its nationals out of Benghazi because of a terrorist threat that the Libyan government has played down.

Having insisted Thursday there was no "no new intelligence" to justify the Europeans' concerns, Libya said Friday it had not been informed of their plans to pull citizens out of the country's second city and was seeking clarification from Britain.