Syrian troops killed seven people on Friday as protests broke out across the country urging international protection from a deadly government crackdown on dissent, the Syrian Revolution General Commission said.

Opposition-affiliated Flash News Network identified the seven victims as Hassan al-Bakkour (Jabal al-Zawiyah), Mohammed Dakkak (Damascus), Abdul Razzaq al-Masri (Homs), Khaled Kharma (Homs), Ahmed al-Intabli (Homs), Ziad al-Hafian (Homs) and Ali al-Fayyad (Deir al-Zour).

Turkish Prime Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a blistering attack on the Syrian regime, saying President Bashar Assad had lost his legitimacy and could lose power over his bloody crackdown on dissent.

Syria's crackdown has infuriated world powers, some of which imposed sanctions on the Damascus regime, with fresh pressure piled on Assad from neighboring Turkey.

A former justice minister in Tunisia, Bechir Takkeri, has been detained for alleged witness nobbling in the case of a yacht stolen in France in 2006, the TAP news agency reported Friday.

A judicial source confirmed to AFP that Takkeri was arrested early on Thursday evening.

Syria's opposition leaders said they expected more support from Russia on Friday after President Dmitry Medvedev accused some of those protesting against Bashar Assad of being "terrorists".

The Russian upper house of parliament's foreign affairs chief Mikhail Margelov met a visiting Syrian delegation that included National Organization for Human Rights in Syria head Ammar Qurabi.

World police body Interpol called Friday for the arrest of fugitive former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for his alleged crimes against humanity, following a request by the International Criminal Court.

Interpol said it had issued a "red notice" for the arrest of Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, one day after ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked for the agency's help.

A lawyer for a Turkish Islamic group said Friday he had submitted to prosecutors a list of Israeli soldiers involved in a deadly raid on a flotilla sent by the group to break the Gaza blockade.

"We have presented a list of Israeli soldiers who gave the order for and who were involved in the attack on the Turkish flotilla to the Istanbul prosecutor's office," Ramazan Ariturk, the lawyer for the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) which organized the ill-fated flotilla, told Agence France Presse.

Protesters began arriving at Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Friday for a planned mass rally calling for reforms as the ruling military warned it would respond harshly to any violence by activists.

Organizers called the rally, which is expected to branch out into a march to the nearby cabinet offices, to press Egypt's military rulers to keep their promises of reform after a revolt ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor on Friday described as "grave and serious" a threat by the Turkish prime minister to send warships to escort any aid vessels trying to reach the Gaza Strip.

"These remarks are grave and serious, but we have no wish to add to the polemic," Meridor said on army radio.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Friday said Palestinian statehood was "long overdue", a day after its leadership launched a campaign to become the world body's 194th member state.

"The two state vision where Israel and Palestinians can live... side by side in peace and security -- that is a still a valid vision and I fully support it," he told reporters in Canberra.

China is ready to help Libya rebuild after Moammar Gadhafi's downfall and it supports the United Nations taking a leading role in reconstruction efforts, Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said Friday.

"It depends on the needs of the Libyan people themselves, whatever they need we will be willing to help them," Cui told reporters on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland.