Thousands of separatists took to the streets Saturday on the anniversary of the 1967 independence of former South Yemen, but deadly gunfire among the activists marred the rally.

The demonstrators came from across the south and gathered on Parade Square in the center of Aden, waving flags of the former South Yemen and carrying banners bearing pro-independence slogans.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on Friday said moderate Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia were in part responsible for their recent political setbacks, accusing them of having been too conciliatory.

A 16-minute audiotape of Zawahiri released on jihadist forums focused on his native Egypt, where he said military-backed authorities were waging war on Islam at the behest of Israel and the United States.

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said Friday that his abduction for several hours the previous day by former rebels was an attempted coup.

"I do not think that more than 100 armed vehicles can seal off the hotel district (in Tripoli) to people without a command being given," he said in a televised address.

At least 12 migrants drowned and 116 were rescued on Friday when their boat capsized off the coast near Egypt's second city Alexandria, a security official said.

Naval vessels were searching for more survivors, the official said, adding that those on board had left Egypt illegally.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said Friday that the Nobel Peace Prize award to the global chemical weapons watchdog highlights the everlasting threat from the banned arms.

"This recognition occurs nearly 100 years after the first chemical attack -- and 50 days after the appalling use of chemical weapons in Syria. Far from being a relic of the past, chemical weapons remain a clear and present danger," Ban said in a tribute to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

A top Palestinian negotiator on Friday slammed what he said was Israel's unwillingness to coordinate on security, after an Israeli settler was killed in the occupied West Bank.

Friday's incident, in which suspected Palestinian militants bludgeoned to death a settler at his home, was the third killing of Israelis in the Palestinian territory in as many weeks.

A suicide bomber gravely wounded three members of the separatist Southern Movement in an attack in the southern Yemeni province of Lahij on Friday, the group and a local official said.

The bomber detonated an explosives belt as an activists' cars headed for the port of Aden for a demonstration on Saturday marking the independence of the former South Yemen.

At least seven Egyptian soldiers were wounded when improvised bombs targeted their armored vehicles in the Sinai border town of Rafah on Friday, a security official said.

The explosions occurred during a military operation in the town bordering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday congratulated the world's chemical arms watchdog for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, praising its bravery and resolve in trying to rid Syria of such weapons.

Since more than 1,000 people were killed in August in a sarin gas attack outside Damascus, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has "taken extraordinary steps and worked with unprecedented speed to address this blatant violation of international norms that shocked the conscience of people around the world," Kerry said.

A Tunisian filmmaker who threw an egg at a minister received a suspended five-month sentence Friday while charges were dropped against the videographer who filmed the incident, their lawyer said.

"Nasreddine Shili was sentenced to five months in prison, suspended, while the charges against Mourad Mehrezi were dismissed," their lawyer Koutheir Bouallegue told Agence France Presse.