Several human rights groups urged British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday to press the UAE's president on alleged torture, including of Britons, and the "unfair trial" of dissidents.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan is scheduled to begin his first official visit to Britain as president on Monday.

Israel's army has announced it will stop using munitions containing white phosphorus, for which it was internationally condemned during a military operation against Gaza in 2008-2009.

Shells containing the chemical "will no longer be used," the army said in a statement released late Thursday.

The European Union on Friday reiterated a request to Damascus to enable a U.N. chemical weapons probe in Syria after the United States said for the first time that the regime has probably used such weapons.

"We hope there will be a United Nations investigation inside Syria to hopefully shed some light on what has really happened," a spokesman for the EU's top diplomat Catherine Ashton said after being queried over the EU stand.

United Nations envoy Martin Kobler warned on Friday that Iraq is at a "crossroads," calling for restraint as a wave of violence killed more than 190 people in four days.

"I call on the conscience of all religious and political leaders not to let anger win over peace, and to use their wisdom, because the country is at a crossroads," Kobler said in a statement.

Secular-leaning judges have set up a more liberal alternative to sharia law courts in Aleppo but face an uphill battle for influence as Islamist groups shore up support in rebel-held Syria.

The sharia courts have the backing of an array of hardline rebel groups whose fighters help enforce their decisions in rebel-controlled districts of Syria's main northern city.

Jordanian protesters torched a U.S. flag at a demonstration in Amman Friday against an American troop deployment in Jordan in connection with the war in neighboring Syria as hundreds also rallied in other cities.

Agence France Presse said about 400 people took to the streets of the old city of Amman after weekly Muslim prayers chanting: "We don't want to see American" soldiers in our country.

Bombs exploded at four Sunni mosques in and around Baghdad on Friday, killing four people and wounding 50, an interior ministry official and medics said.

The bombers struck after the main weekly prayers as four days of violence that have killed more than 190 people raised fears of a return to all-out sectarian conflict.

The number of Syrians who have fled their conflict-ravaged homeland has surpassed 1.4 million, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday, warning that it was no longer able to meet their medical needs.

As of Thursday, the total number of Syrians registered as refugees was 1,401,435, the UNHCR said.

Syria's opposition on Friday urged the U.N. Security Council to take immediate action after the United States said for the first time the regime probably used chemical weapons.

"It is time for the U.N. Security Council to act" on Syria, an official from the main opposition National Coalition told Agence France Presse.

The international community must be ready to use military action in response to any chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime, Israel's deputy foreign minister said on Friday.

"From the moment the international community understands that red lines have been crossed and that chemical weapons have been used, they will realize there's no other choice than to react (militarily)," Zeev Elkin told Israeli army radio.