Iraq has put 17 people to death, 16 of them on terrorism-related charges, the justice ministry said Monday, the latest in a series of executions that have drawn international condemnation.

They are the first executions announced by the ministry since brazen July assaults on two major prisons freed hundreds of prisoners, including some who had been sentenced to death, drawing criticism within Iraq that executions were proceeding too slowly.

EU foreign ministers will hold emergency talks Wednesday to forge a response to Egypt's blistering violence, possibly withholding aid or arms while urging a political solution in the key Arab nation.

"We will respond to the current situation," the European Union's special envoy to Egypt, Bernardino Leon, said at the close of hastily called talks between senior diplomats from the bloc's 28 member states.

A former judge, aged 79, was gunned down as he left a mosque in the restive eastern city of Benghazi on Monday, a Libyan security services spokesman said.

"Fethi Lekhfifi, a former judge, was shot dead as he came out of a mosque in Benghazi at dawn," said Colonel Abdallah al-Zayedi.

Egypt is on the "right path", foreign minister Nabil Fahmy said Monday in Sudan on his first trip abroad, after hundreds died in clashes between Egyptian Islamists and security forces.

"Yes there is a crisis but we are on the right path and I believe in the future," he said after talks with his Sudanese counterpart Ali Karti.

Kuwait is to deport nine Egyptian Islamists for participating in protests outside their embassy in the Gulf emirate which bans foreigners from demonstrating, a newspaper said on Monday.

The men were among a group of some 70 protesters who staged two demonstrations outside the Egyptian embassy and consulate last week, to protest a deadly crackdown in Cairo of supporters of Egypt's deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, al-Rai newspaper reported.

Attacks on Monday killed six people in Iraq, as gunmen defied massive government operations to stem some of the worst violence to have hit the country in five years.

Security forces have mounted some of the biggest operations targeting militants since the 2011 withdrawal of American troops, but analysts and diplomats say Iraq is not tackling the root causes of the unrest.

The European Union held a first round of emergency talks Monday on the spiraling bloodshed in Egypt amid warnings the bloc was ready to "urgently review" ties with the country.

Ambassadors on the bloc's Political and Security Committee were called away from their summer break for talks in Brussels that kicked off Monday morning after the death toll from five days of violence in Egypt climbed to almost 800.

The Syrian army has recaptured all rebel-held positions in Latakia, President Bashar Assad's home province, state-run SANA news agency reported Monday quoting a military source.

"The army retook control of the Nabi Ashia mountain range and adjoining areas in the north of Latakia province," the source said, of villages seized in early August by rebels trying to topple Assad.

Militants killed 25 Egypt police Monday in the deadliest attack of its kind in years, as the country struggles to deal with a crisis sparked by the ouster of president Mohammed Morsi.

Sources said militants fire rocket-propelled grenades at two buses carrying police in the Sinai Peninsula, just hours after Egypt's military chief vowed a "forceful" response to violence roiling the Arab world's most populous nation.

Iraq's premier backed the Egyptian military crackdown on supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi in a statement Sunday, the latest Arab leader to back the operation.

Nouri al-Maliki appealed for "self-restraint" but said Baghdad stood with the Egyptian government, describing its moves against the Muslim Brotherhood as efforts to impose law and order.