Observers from the European Union on Friday praised as "transparent and credible" this week's Jordanian general election, after the Islamist opposition alleged it had been marred by fraud.

"Polling, counting and tabulation of results in the 23 January parliamentary election were, despite minor glitches, well-administered," said David Martin, head of the 80-strong EU mission.

France on Friday joined Britain, other European states and Australia in pulling its nationals out of Benghazi because of a terrorist threat that the Libyan government has played down.

Having insisted Thursday there was no "no new intelligence" to justify the Europeans' concerns, Libya said Friday it had not been informed of their plans to pull citizens out of the country's second city and was seeking clarification from Britain.

A large number of Syrians on Friday heeded a call by the authorities to join weekly Muslim prayers for security and gathered in mosques across the country, the state news agency SANA said.

"Popular participation was broad in the prayer in mosques across Syria for the return of safety and security to the homeland," SANA said, a day after a Muslim feast in which the authorities called for a "million-man prayer."

More than 6,400 Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan's Zaatari camp in the past 24 hours, bringing to over 30,000 the number of arrivals since the start of the month, the U.N. refugee agency said.

"Jordan has experienced a record number of refugees crossing," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva, noting that December's influx totaled 16,413.

Syria's air force launched new raids on rebel-held towns east of Damascus on Friday, after clashes raged on the edges of a Palestinian refugee camp in the capital, a watchdog said.

The army pounded opposition-held areas of battered Homs in central Syria, as it stepped up a campaign to reclaim areas of "the capital of the revolution," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Soldiers fired on an anti-government rally west of Baghdad on Friday, killing six demonstrators, the first deaths in weeks of increasingly angry protests calling for Iraq's premier to quit.

The shootings came as tens of thousands rallied in majority Sunni areas of the country, railing against alleged targeting of their minority community by the Shiite-led authorities, while in a cross-sectarian show of support, Shiite clerics called on the government to heed their demands.

Senator John Kerry, on track to become the next U.S. secretary of state, is to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah in February to examine ways of reviving the peace process, an Israeli daily reported on Friday.

Quoting senior Israeli officials, the left-leaning Haaretz said Kerry was interested in visiting as soon as possible, even before a new Israeli government is appointed following Tuesday's general election.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has appealed for calm after seven people died in clashes between police and protesters on the second anniversary of the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

As troops were deployed in the flashpoint city of Suez, Morsi, in a message posted on his Twitter account Friday, urged "citizens to adhere to the values of the revolution, express opinions freely and peacefully and renounce violence".

The authorities in Yemen have seized a shipment of assault rifles at the southern port of Aden that originated from Turkey, the second in the same month, state media reported on Friday.

Among the weapons discovered in a container were "115 T14 Turkish-made assault rifles," state news agency Saba quoted Aden customs chief Mohammed Zumam as saying.

Israeli officials said Thursday that military action against Iran needed to stay on the table, as former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned of a crisis over Tehran's nuclear ambitions in the "very foreseeable future".

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the threat of military action was vital to efforts against Iran's nuclear program.