Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday approved a $9.2-billion budget for his war-torn country, official media reported.

Ousted president Omar al-Bashir's party on Friday condemned Sudan's new "illegal government" for ordering its closure and the dismantling of his regime that ruled the country for 30 years.

Algerians are due to elect a new president next month but a huge protest movement bitterly rejects the vote, fearing it will cement in power politicians close to the disgraced old guard.

By torching Tehran's consulates and slapping their muddy shoes against photographs of top Iranian officials, Iraqi protesters have shattered a taboo on public criticism of their influential eastern neighbour.

More than 30 protesters were killed Thursday in one of the bloodiest days in a wave of protest rocking Iraq, the Iraqi Human Rights Commission said, blaming the deaths on "excessive force."

The Commission, a government-funded body which has faced official pressure not to publish death tolls, said 25 were killed in the restive city of Nasiriyah.

Thousands of Iraqis marched in a funeral procession Thursday in the restive southern city of Nasiriyah, AFP's correspondent said, defying a curfew imposed earlier to mourn victims of the crackdown.

Palestinian protests along the Gaza-Israel border have been cancelled for the third week, organisers said on Thursday, amid declining turnout and fears of a fresh conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Israel on Thursday demolished the West Bank homes of four Palestinians accused of a deadly attack, sparking clashes with stone-throwing protesters, the army and an AFP journalist said.

Two Turkish soldiers died when a mortar hit their post on the Syrian border, the defence ministry said Thursday.

Iran on Thursday demanded Iraq take decisive action against "aggressors" behind an arson attack by protesters on its consulate in the neighbouring country's holy city of Najaf.