Thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday ahead of a planned rally against the ruling military and presidential candidates who served under ousted leader Hosni Mubarak.

Liberal groups called for the rally before the committee overseeing the election in May last week barred Mubarak's vice president and spy chief Omar Suleiman from standing, along with two leading Islamist candidates.

Al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) said on Friday that it carried out a wave of attacks across the country that killed 38 people, in a statement on jihadist website Honein.

"A part of the security and military efforts of the Islamic State mobilized for a new wave and... another bloody Thursday on the heads of the apostates, and in simultaneous operations targeted the security and military, and government centers and leadership," it said.

Syrian activists protested against President Bashar al-Assad on Friday, saying the embattled leader will be defeated, as at least 36 civilians and 13 pro-regime security personnel were killed in fresh violence.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 36 civilians across the country, including three children and two women.

The French presidential frontrunner, Socialist Francois Hollande, said Friday that he would support France joining a U.N.-sanctioned military intervention in Syria.

"If done within a U.N. framework, we would participate in such an intervention," Hollande told Europe 1 radio when asked about possible U.N. military action in Syria to protect civilians.

Russia said Friday a ceasefire was generally holding in Syria despite some violations and should be seen as an achievement that was saving the country from a broader civil war.

"Despite the existing violations and provocations, the ceasefire is holding overall. This is a great achievement whose loss could lead to a dangerous retreat to a new wave of violence," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The trial of a television station director accused of insulting sacred values for having screened the Franco-Iranian film "Persepolis" resumed Thursday in Tunisia under tight security.

Supporters of Nessma television chief Nabil Karoui and Islamists held rival protests outside the Tunis court, which was heavily guarded by police screening anyone trying to get into the chamber of the trial.

World powers should push for tough United Nations sanctions against Syria in order to force Bashar al-Assad's regime to comply with a U.N. peace plan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday.

"We need to start moving very vigorously in the Security Council for a Chapter Seven sanctions resolution," Clinton told international envoys at talks in Paris.

The rebel Free Syrian Army called for outside military intervention against the Damascus regime even without U.N. Security Council approval, in a video posted online on Thursday.

General Mustafa Ahmed al-Sheikh, who heads the SLA military council, charged that the government, unlike rebel fighters had failed to respect a ceasefire deal agreed with U.N.-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan.

A coalition of Western and Middle East powers warned on Thursday that they would seek tougher international action if Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime continues to flout a shaky U.N. peace plan.

Senior officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, accused Assad of breaking the ceasefire and said a U.N. observer mission would have to be dramatically reinforced.

Fresh violence raged across Syria on Thursday even as authorities in Damascus penned an agreement aimed at putting a stop to 13 months of bloodshed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed four civilians across the country, but the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, reported a higher death toll.