More than 700,000 Syrian refugees have registered or are awaiting registration in neighboring countries as the conflict in their war-torn nation spirals further out of control, the U.N.'s refugee agency said Tuesday.

"We've had a huge push in the last few weeks. The needs are enormous," UNHCR spokeswoman Sybella Wilkes told Agence France Presse, adding that a colleague on the ground had complained that "we cannot get to everyone fast enough."

Egypt's military chief warned Tuesday the political crisis sweeping the country could lead to the collapse of the state, as thousands defied curfews and the death toll from days of rioting rose to 52.

"The continuing conflict between political forces and their differences concerning the management of the country could lead to a collapse of the state and threaten future generations," General Abdel Fattah al-Sissi said in a speech to students at a military academy.

Yemeni coast guard in coordination with the U.S. navy stopped a ship last week in the Arabian sea loaded with rockets and explosives, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

The coast guard boarded the vessel, operated by Yemeni crew, in the territorial waters of the south Arabian Peninsula country and found on it a cache of weapons, including shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled-grenades, the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency Saba.

At the peak of Iraq's sectarian war, officials in Baghdad accused Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime of allowing Islamist militants to cross the two countries' border to sow chaos.

Now, Damascus may be feeling the consequences of "playing with fire" as the uprising against Assad's rule enters its 23rd month and regime forces fight the Al-Nusra Front -- a formidable group that has been linked to al-Qaieda in Iraq.

Attacks in Iraq killed three people and wounded six others on Monday, as the country grapples with more than a month of anti-government rallies and a political crisis, officials said.

In separate incidents in Baghdad, gunmen killed a soldier and the bodyguard of a Shiite member of parliament, security and medical officials said. One soldier was also wounded in the violence.

The United Nations will be forced to cut already reduced food rations to hundreds of thousands of Syrians unless a huge cash injection is found, a top humanitarian official warned Monday.

U.N. agencies have already cut the nutritional value of rations by a half over the past two months because of money shortages, U.N. humanitarian operations director John Ging said ahead of a donors conference in Kuwait on Wednesday.

Amnesty International on Monday condemned the police's use of deadly force against demonstrators in Egypt, where nearly 50 have been killed in clashes.

"Eyewitness accounts collected by Amnesty International in Egypt point to the unnecessary use of lethal force by security forces during a weekend of clashes with demonstrators," it said.

Britain said on Monday it had identified a "potential threat" to its embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli, days after warning of a threat to Westerners in the eastern city of Benghazi.

"We're aware of a potential threat to the British embassy in Tripoli and we are liaising closely with the Libyan government," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to congratulate him on his Likud Party's showing in last week's general election.

"President Obama spoke today by telephone with Prime Minister Netanyahu to congratulate him on his party's success in winning a plurality of Knesset seats in Israel's recent election," a White House statement said.

The White House on Monday condemned the unrest shaking Egypt's fragile peace and called on the country's leaders to make clear that violence is never acceptable.

"We strongly condemn the recent violence that has taken place in various Egyptian cities," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.