A rights watchdog expressed fears Friday that an Italian Jesuit priest who went to meet with jihadists in northern Syria has been taken prisoner, calling for his immediate release.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' call for Father Paolo Dall'Oglio's release comes three days after he went to meet with commanders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates called on Friday for Egypt to return to normal and restore stability after fresh protests.

"Egypt needs to get back to a new normal," Kerry said on a stopover in London, after Islamist backers of Egypt's deposed president Mohammed Morsi staged defiant rallies.

Qatar on Friday announced it has shipped a consignment of liquefied natural gas as aid for the Egyptian people, in its first such gesture since president Mohammed Morsi's overthrow.

State news agency QNA said the LNG shipment was loaded on Thursday and was headed for Egypt on a gas tanker.

More than 170,000 Muslims prayed outside Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque on Friday, as the holy month of Ramadan entered its final full week, police said.

The faithful turned out in droves to prostrate themselves in the vast Al-Aqsa compound within the walled Old City, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Eighteen prisoners have escaped during an attack on a Libyan police vehicle taking them back to prison from a courthouse in the capital, a police spokesman said on Friday.

Thursday's attack is the latest in a string of incidents plaguing Libya and comes after more than 1,200 inmates escaped during a prison riot last week in the restive eastern city of Benghazi.

Islamist backers of Egypt's deposed president Mohammed Morsi staged defiant rallies Friday, with police firing tear gas at demonstrators, after the government ordered their protest camps to be broken up.

The new marches came after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry angered Morsi loyalists by saying said Egypt's military had been "restoring democracy" when it deposed the Islamist leader.

The United States issued a worldwide alert Friday warning of plans by al-Qaida to launch an attack in the Middle East or North Africa in August.

The State Department issued the caution to U.S. citizens a day after announcing that some two dozen embassies or consulates would be closed on Sunday as a precaution.

Qatar's new emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Friday landed in Saudi Arabia on his first foreign foray since acceding to the throne in June, state news agency SPA said.

Sheikh Tamim flew in to the port city of Jeddah and will meet King Abdullah and perform the omra pilgrimage to nearby Mecca, Islam's holiest site, the agency said.

On the central reservation down the main road in the former rebel bastion of Qusayr in central Syria, three men are clearing weeds, planting palm trees and pruning oleander bushes.

Behind them, a blue metal sign with white lettering for the "Savings Bank -- Qusayr branch" is riddled with bullet holes, and in front stands what is left of a statue of President Bashar Assad's brother Bassel who died in a car crash.

U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay called Friday for a probe into the reported mass execution by rebels of Syrian soldiers taken captive in fighting in the north of the country this week.

Pillay said the events during fighting for control of the town of Khan al-Assal in the northern province of Aleppo were "deeply shocking".