Egyptian activists have called for anti-military demonstrations across the country on Friday, days after bloody clashes near the defense ministry left at least nine people dead.

Several pro-democracy movements, including April 6, as well as the powerful Muslim Brotherhood said they would be joining the protests in Cairo and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, amid a tense political run-up to the country's first post-uprising presidential election.

Iran on Friday held a parliamentary election run-off to decide 65 seats still outstanding in its 290-member legislature following a March 2 first round.

The vote, whose results are due out in the coming days, was seen as unlikely to change the political direction of the predominantly conservative chamber, though it could help lay the ground for 2013 presidential elections.

The head of the U.N. military observer mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, said on Thursday that it was the responsibility of the Syrian army to make the first move to halt the violence.

"If you have two individuals using on each other all their weapons, who is going to be the first one to move the finger? Who is going to be the first one to make the move?" Mood asked, during a visit to the battered central city of Homs.

Federalists in Libya's eastern Cyrenaica region called on Thursday for a boycott of next month's constituent assembly elections, rejecting the transition plan set out by the interim authorities.

The Council of Cyrenaica, which wants autonomy for the oil-rich east, issued a statement calling on "all Libyans... to boycott elections" unless the ruling National Transitional Council changes its plans.

Libyan authorities on Thursday granted immunity to former rebels who fought to oust Moammar Gadhafi’s regime and unveiled legislation that cracks down on the fallen strongman's supporters.

"There is no punishment for acts made necessary by the February 17 revolution," read the law published on the National Transitional Council's website.

A terrorist haven in the eyes of the Syrian regime but "heart of the revolution" for its foes, Baba Amr is now a ghost town where residents move silently among the rubble of their homes.

Two months of bombardment reduced this central district of Homs city to nothing more than a heap of ruins. The walls of houses are pocked with bullets holes, punctured by tank shells and gouged by shrapnel.

Moammar Gadhafi’s regime funded French President Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign, lawyers for former Libyan prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi said Thursday, quoting their client.

"Moammar Gadhafi, his regime and the officials who worked with him financed Sarkozy's election campaign in 2007," lawyer Bechir Essed told reporters in Tunis, where Mahmoudi is detained, mentioning the sum of some 50 million euros ($65 million).

Syria's Aleppo University on Thursday announced it was suspending classes after pro-government forces killed four students and arrested more than 200 in a campus raid during anti-regime protests.

In a message posted on its website, the northern city's university told students that classes were suspended until final exams on May 13.

Syrian security forces arrested two sons of prominent opposition figure Fayez Sara on Thursday, hauling them off to an unknown location without showing a warrant, he told Agence France Presse.

"Security forces stormed the apartment where the brothers live at 6 am (03:00 GMT). They broke down the door looking for weapons and took Bassam, 37, and Wissam, 26,” Sara told AFP by telephone.

Egypt's military rulers vowed Thursday that this month's presidential election will be fair and moved to assure the public it would hand over power, a day after a deadly attack on an anti-military protest.

"We are committed to fair elections 100 percent. We don't have any candidates. All the candidates are respectable Egyptians," said Major General Mohammed al-Assar of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces