Tunisia's interim government on Sunday asked Saudi Arabia to extradite deposed strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as it faced a second day of protests demanding its resignation.

Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi's government made the official request to Riyadh, where Ben Ali fled on January 14 with his family after weeks of popular revolt against his 23-year regime, said a foreign ministry statement cited by state news agency TAP.

Anti-regime protests spread closer to the Libyan capital Sunday amid new fighting in the flashpoint city of Benghazi, as Human Rights Watch said it feared a catastrophe with more than 170 people dead in an iron-fisted crackdown.

As the death toll continued to rise, world leaders stepped up their pressure over strongman Moammar Gadhafi's response to the unprecedented challenge to his four-decade rule of the oil-rich North African country.

Hundreds of stateless Arabs demonstrated for the third day running on Sunday to press for basic rights and citizenship of the oil-rich Gulf state, an Agence France Presse photographer said.

Up to 300 protesters took to the streets in al-Jahraa, west of Kuwait City and around 200 demonstrated in Sulaibiya, south west of the capital, and the two protests remained peaceful unlike the previous two days.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday urged speedy reforms, comprehensive dialogue and more efforts to battle corruption amid popular discontent and pro-reform protests.

"When I talk about reform, it means that I want real and fast reforms," the king told government officials, MPs, senators and members of the judiciary, the state-run Petra news agency reported.

Thousands staged rallies in Moroccan cities on Sunday demanding political reform and limits on the powers of King Mohammed VI, the latest protests demanding change that have rocked the region.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 people took to the streets of the capital Rabat, shouting: "The people want change, denouncing corruption and calling for a democratic constitution to be adopted.

Hundreds of students demonstrated on Sunday on the eighth straight day of anti-regime protests in Sanaa, while police shot dead a protester in south Yemen and the opposition vowed to join protests.

In the capital, students gathered outside the university's campus chanting slogans demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power for 32 years, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of Iran's ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was freed on Sunday after being arrested briefly in Tehran as police deployed to prevent protests, Fars news agency reported.

"Faezeh Hashemi, who was arrested as she led a number of anti-revolutionaries and rioters while claiming to purchase clothes in Vali Asr Street, has been released," the report said.

Around 3,000 Palestinians gathered in the West Bank on Sunday to protest against the U.S. veto that nixed a Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements.

The crowd massed in Ramallah's Manara Square, a central roundabout in the West Bank city, waving banners and shouting slogans against the American administration.

Several Iranian opposition websites said that anti-government demonstrations had started in some cities, including Tehran on Sunday, as police said security forces were deployed in the Iranian capital.

"Police fired tear gas as a cat-and-mouse game (between police and demonstrators) began in Vali Asr Square" of Tehran, the Rahesabz.net said citing witnesses.

Israel's prime minister on Sunday accused Iran of trying to exploit the recent instability in Egypt by sending two warships through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, saying he views the move "with gravity."

The Iranian ships were expected to make a rare crossing through the canal on Sunday or Monday en route to Syria — an Iranian ally and Israel's enemy to the north. Egypt confirmed the ships would be allowed through the strategic passage.