Running clashes erupted on Friday evening between supporters and opponents of Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi near Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The sound of gunfire could be heard as the two sides hurled rocks at each other on the October 6 bridge leading into Tahrir. Below the bridge, ambulances were ferrying the injured out of the area.

The African Union suspended Egypt from the continental body Friday after the ouster of president Mohammed Morsi, in line with its strict rules against unconstitutional changes of government.

The AU's Peace and Security "council decided to suspend the participation of Egypt in AU activities until the restitution of constitutional order", said an official statement.

The United Nations food agencies on Friday appealed for more funds to help an estimated four million Syrians unable to produce or buy enough to eat as a new report detailed a farming sector severely hit by the conflict.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said it had only received 10 percent of the $41.7 million (32.4 million euros) it needed to assist 768,000 farmers, while the World Food Program said its operations were "only 48 percent resourced".

Debra Tice wakes up each morning hoping her life will have changed and the 11 months since her son Austin disappeared in Syria will turn out to have been a bad dream.

But since she and her husband Marc learnt that their 31-year-old first-born had gone missing while reporting in the war-torn country, not a single morning has given her that relief.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay Friday expressed alarm about reported mass arrests of key members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood after the military ousted president Mohammed Morsi, and urged all sides to respect fundamental freedoms.

"There should be no more violence, no arbitrary detention, no illegal acts of retribution," Pillay said in a statement.

Explosions rocked several army ammunition depots in the western Syrian province of Latakia on Friday, possibly after they were targeted with rockets, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said there were reports of deaths and injuries in the blasts but he had no further details.

Attacks killed five people in town squares in Iraq on Friday, including four who died when a suicide bomber set off his vehicle rigged with explosives just before midday prayers.

The latest violence, which left dozens wounded, comes as Iraq struggles with a surge in violence coinciding with a long-running government deadlock and months of protests among the Sunni Arab minority.

The Philippines said Friday it would keep its 340 peacekeepers in the Golan Heights provided it gets requested additional heavier weapons and protection.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino would reject a proposal to pull the Filipinos out if the United Nations met his requests to boost security, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said in a statement.

An Egyptian soldier was killed early Friday in coordinated rocket and machinegun attacks by Islamist militants on army checkpoints and a police base in the restive Sinai, medics said.

The soldier was killed when the militants fired on an army checkpoint near the north Sinai village of al-Gura, medics said, adding two other soldiers were wounded in the attack.

Egypt's military appealed for conciliation and warned against revenge attacks, after it toppled president Mohammed Morsi, as police rounded up senior Islamists ahead of planned rallies by Morsi's supporters on Friday.

The military published the statement on its spokesman's Facebook page as scores were injured in clashes between the Islamist Morsi's supporters and opponents in the Nile Delta ahead of the planned rallies.