Massive pro-regime crowds vented their anger on Sunday as international pressure mounted on President Bashar Assad after an Arab League decision to suspend Syria and over its bloody protest crackdown.

In central Damascus, tens of thousands of people turned out in support of Assad, waving Syrian flags and portraits of the embattled leader, said an AFP reporter at the scene.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned an attack by angry protesters on its embassy in Damascus, blaming the Syrian government for a security lapse, the Saudi state news agency reported.

"The Syrian forces did not carry out the necessary measures to stop" the demonstrators, a foreign ministry official was quoted as saying by SPA news agency.

A hapless Canadian tourist who was shot in a southern Egyptian family feud died on Saturday after an unsuccessful operation, the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website.

The man, identified as Jean Francois, was shot when his taxi refused to stop at a checkpoint manned by villagers from al-Samata, who were looking for members of a rival clan, the report said.

Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill on Saturday started a peacemaking bid to unrest-swept Syria for talks with President Bashar Assad and other leaders, officials said.

"I am deeply convinced that all the problems can be solved peacefully and through dialogue," Kirill told journalists at Damascus airport, the Russian news agencies RIA Novosti and Interfax reported.

A cell planning attacks in the Sunni-dominated Gulf kingdom of Bahrain troubled by a Shiite-led opposition movement, has been broken up, the interior ministry spokesman said on Saturday.

Four members of the cell were detained in Qatar and turned over to Manama, while a fifth Bahraini was arrested inside the country, spokesman General Tareq al-Hasan said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday praised the "leadership" of the Arab League after the grouping suspended Syria in a move that deepened the Damascus government's isolation.

The League said the suspension will remain in place until President Bashar Assad implements an Arab deal to end violence against protesters, and called for sanctions and transition talks with the opposition.

Morocco opened its campaign for November 25 legislative elections Saturday, with moderate Islamists seen as possible winners and fears of a low turnout in the country's second vote this year.

In the last parliamentary elections in 2007 turnout was a mere 37 percent, a sign of Moroccans' lack of interest in public affairs.

Tunisia's constituent assembly will meet for the first time on November 22, officials announced Saturday, beginning a process of political and constitutional reform in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

Interim president Foued Mebazaa will sign a decree summoning the assembly and "outlining the procedures for a successful inauguration", said officials.

The Arab League suspended Syria on Saturday until President Bashar Assad implements an Arab deal to end violence against protesters, and called for sanctions and transition talks with the opposition.

Syrian envoy Youssef Ahmed angrily denounced the move as illegal, saying Damascus had already implemented the deal and claiming the United States had ordered the suspension.

At least 13 people were killed in northwest Syria on Saturday, mostly security personnel, as activists reported clashes and military operations following the defection of dozens of soldiers.

Two civilians were killed in the restive central city of Homs.