The judge in the retrial of Egyptian former President Hosni Mubarak recused himself on Saturday, in a chaotic opening hearing that lasted just seconds and saw a proud and combative Mubarak smile and wave in the dock.

Judge Mostafa Hassan Abdallah told the court he would send the case to the Court of Appeal, which will then refer the trial to a new circuit, sending the fate of the ousted strongman back to square one.

A planned meeting Saturday between Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to try to resolve a damaging dispute has been postponed until at least next week, Palestinian officials said.

It has been put back until after a visit by Abbas to Kuwait on Monday, an official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi and the military have closed ranks to deny charges that soldiers had killed and tortured protesters, following leaks of an inquiry report implicating officers.

Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who is also army chief, denied in a televised statement aired Friday that the military had committed abuses, after talks with Morsi, who named the fact-finding inquiry last year.

British military scientists have found forensic evidence that chemical weapons have been used in the conflict in Syria, the Times newspaper reported on Saturday.

A soil sample thought to have been taken from an area close to Damascus and smuggled back to Britain has provided proof that "some kind of chemical weapon" had been fired, it quoted defense sources as saying.

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird's meeting with an Israeli minister in annexed Arab East Jerusalem this week was a "slap in the face" to Palestinians, a Palestinian official said Friday.

Baird met Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, lead peace negotiator in Israel's cabinet, at her office in east Jerusalem on Tuesday, in a move normally avoided by visiting diplomats because it could be seen as legitimizing Israel's controversial annexation.

Israel's army fired artillery into Syria on Friday night after gunshots and shells were directed at soldiers on the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights, the military said.

"A short while ago, artillery and shots were fired at IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers along the security fence between Israel and Syria," it said in a statement.

Thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated near Manama on Friday urging democratic reforms, part of a series of protests planned by the political opposition ahead of next week's Formula One Grand Prix.

Under the banner "Democracy is our right," the crowds marched in the Shiite area of Aali south of the capital, waving Bahraini flags and chanting anti-monarchy slogans.

A major coalition of Islamist rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad has denounced al-Nusra Front's pledge of allegiance to al-Qaida, urging insurgents to unite behind moderate Islam.

"When we in Syria launched our jihad (holy war) against the sectarian regime, we did not do so for the sake of allegiance to a man here or another there," said the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF) in a statement late on Thursday.

Saudi authorities executed on Friday a Pakistani man convicted of rape and murder, in the northwestern town of Tabuk, the interior ministry said.

Amjad Ali Kol was convicted of raping and strangling a woman, before stealing her money, the ministry said in a statement carried on official news agency SPA.

A bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque north of Baghdad on Friday, killing seven people, a police colonel and a doctor said, the latest in an uptick in violence in the runup to elections next week.

The bomber struck after prayers at the Omar bin Abdul Aziz mosque, south of Baquba, and also wounded another 25 people the sources said.