Assailants fired dozens of mortars and rockets at an Iranian exiles camp in Iraq in a dawn attack that killed five people Saturday, the first deaths from violence since they resettled near Baghdad last year.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the assault on Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base on the western outskirts of the capital housing about 3,000 members of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK).

The United States is weighing up what steps to take next to try to end the conflict in Syria, new Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday, adding there was "too much killing" in the 22-month war.

"There's too much killing and there's too much violence and we obviously want to try to find a way forward," Kerry said, adding: "It is a very complicated and very dangerous situation."

The White House Friday said it had been motivated by shielding Syrian civilians, Israelis and its own security, when President Barack Obama nixed an administration plan to arm Syrian rebels.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said during a congressional hearing Thursday that he backed plans to arm and train vetted rebel groups fighting President Bashar Assad's forces, in an initiative also supported by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and ex-CIA chief David Petraeus.

A wanted Tunisian Salafist leader has urged the ruling Islamists against making concessions to secular parties, warning that to do so would be "political suicide," a U.S.-based monitoring group said on Friday.

"We stress this to the Ennahda movement... that conceding and prostrating in such a decisive moment in our country's history will be political suicide," said Abu Iyadh, who heads the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia.

Egyptian police fired volleys of tear gas at protesters in several provinces, as thousands took to the streets to demand Islamist President Mohamed Morsi fulfill the goals of the revolt that brought him to power.

Protesters lobbed petrol bombs and set off fireworks, as security vans charged towards demonstrators who fled down the large avenue flanking the presidential palace in Cairo.

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said Friday that he stuck by his decision to form of new government of technocrats, despite a section of his ruling Islamist party opposing the plan, official media reported.

"I stick by my decision to form a government of technocrats and I would not need the support of the constituent assembly" to do so, Jebali was quoted as saying by the TAP news agency.

A sea of mourners, some wailing in grief as others angrily denounced the government, followed the coffin Friday of slain opposition leader Chokri Belaid, whose funeral became a mass protest against Tunisia's ruling Islamists.

From early morning, thousands of people gathered under a wet winter sky to pay their last respects to Belaid, many carrying pictures of the charismatic human rights lawyer and outspoken government critic.

Gunmen in Yemen on Friday blew up a key oil pipeline that repeatedly comes under attack in the country's eastern Marib province, an al-Qaida stronghold, a security official and witnesses told Agence France Presse.

"Subversive elements in Wadi Abida (around 12 kilometers, seven miles from Marib) blew up" the 320-kilometer (200-mile) pipeline that carries oil from the Safer oilfields in Marib to an export terminal on the Red Sea, the official said.

The Turkish government has spent more than $600 million (450 million euros) on feeding and housing Syrian refugees, the prime minister was quoted as saying Friday.

"Our overall spending thus far has exceeded $600 million," the daily Hurriyet quoted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying.

Cyprus said on Friday it has upgraded its relations with the Palestinians to full diplomatic mission status, one of just eight European Union countries to do so.

The decision was announced by Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis during an official visit by her Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Malki.