Nine Israelis -- five Arabs and four Jews -- were arrested on Thursday after scuffles at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, Israeli police told Agence France Presse.

"A group of Arab Israelis threatened a group of Jews and Christians visiting the Temple Mount," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said of a first round of arrests in the morning in which five Arabs and a Jew were detained.

An Egyptian court sentenced an associate of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's son Gamal on Thursday to seven years in jail for money-laundering.

Ahmed Ezz, a steel magnate and former senior official in Mubarak's now defunct National Democratic Party, was also fined a massive 19 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.1 billion/2.4 billion euros).

Syria's chief ally Iran on Thursday urged Syria and Turkey to both show "restraint" following a border shelling exchange that threatened a broader conflict, according to the Fars news agency.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran asks both sides to show restraint, to investigate the issue and take note of the enemy's goals in the region," Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab affairs, Hossein Amir Adbolahian, told the news agency.

A drone air strike blasted two cars carrying suspected Al-Qaida gunmen in the southern Yemen province of Shabawa on Thursday, killing five of them, a tribal chief and witnesses said.

"Five militants belonging to Ansar Al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic law) were killed in a drone strike" in Shabwa, said the tribal chief.

France on Thursday said a Syrian attack on Turkey which killed five civilians was a serious threat to global security and peace and called for an immediate halt to such strikes.

"This violation of international law constitutes a serious threat to global security and peace," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement.

Russia on Thursday voiced concern at the "deteriorating" situation between Syria and Turkey, where cross-border shelling has heightened tensions.

Turkey resumed fire on Syrian positions on Thursday, reportedly killing several soldiers, in revenge for mortar fire on Wednesday which killed five Turkish civilians.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday he believes "the Arab Spring will be followed by a Persian Spring," with international sanctions against Iran leading to renewed domestic unrest.

His remarks came a day after scuffles broke out in central Tehran in the first sign of unrest over Iran's plunging currency, which has lost more than half its value since last week as European and U.S. sanctions have bitten.

A car bomb hit a private security convoy in Baghdad on Thursday, killing four people and wounding at least nine others, security and medical officials said.

The bomb exploded in the Mansour area of west Baghdad about 9:00 am (06:00 GMT), killing four people and wounding nine, an interior ministry official said.

An explosion followed by an exchange of fire with rebels in Damascus province on Thursday left at least 21 members of Syria's elite Republican Guards unit dead, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported an earlier toll of 18 from the violence in Qudsaya, west of the capital, but revised it upwards.

Turkey pounded Syrian targets early on Thursday, killing several soldiers, in reprisal for deadly cross-border fire that has sharply escalated tensions in the tinder-box region.

In Ankara, the Turkish parliament met behind closed doors in an emergency session to consider the government's request to authorize Ankara to conduct cross-border military operations inside Syria.