Sporadic clashes broke out overnight between protesters demanding the ouster of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and security forces outside the presidential palace, witnesses said on Sunday.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the confrontations which follow violent clashes on Friday outside the presidential palace that left one person dead.

A ship loaded with rockets and explosives which Yemen said it had intercepted last month came from Iran and the arms were destined for Shiite rebels, a security official said on Sunday.

"The boat was heading towards the (Red Sea) port of Al-Mukha" and the arms "were destined for the Huthi rebels in Saada," the northern stronghold of the Shiite fighters, the Yemeni security official told AFP.

A suicide car bomb followed by an assault by grenade-throwing gunmen on a police headquarters in a disputed ethnically mixed city in north Iraq killed 30 people on Sunday.

The vehicle that was detonated in central Kirkuk had been painted to make it look like a police car, and the militants who sought to seize the compound were dressed as policemen, witnesses said.

An exiled Iranian opposition group called in Paris on Saturday for a boycott of the June presidential election that will choose a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"This election whose only candidates are criminals implicated in the torture, massacre and looting of the Iranian people for 34 years, has no legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people and must be boycotted," the National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement released at an international conference in Paris.

Israeli President Shimon Peres tasked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday with forming a new government after two days of intense talks with the parties recently elected to the new parliament.

"I have decided to charge Benjamin Netanyahu with forming the government," Peres said at a press conference at his official residence in Jerusalem, after 82 of the 120 members of the Knesset had declared in favor of the premier.

Official figures released on Saturday said violence in Iraq fell last month compared to December, disputing an Agence France Presse tally which showed it was the country's deadliest month since September.

The contrasting figures coincide with high tensions in Iraq, with a political crisis pitting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against his erstwhile government partners as he grapples with weeks of rallies calling for his ouster.

Egypt's main opposition group on Saturday backed calls to oust President Mohamed Morsi and demanded he go on trial after deadly clashes left the Islamist leader scrambling to contain fallout from footage of police brutality.

The opposition National Salvation Front demanded Morsi be prosecuted for "killings and torture" as it urged Egyptians to stage peaceful protests.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday he wants to keep in regular contact with Syria's opposition after holding his first direct talks with the coalition's leader, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, Russian news agencies reported.

"I reminded Khatib that after the creation of the coalition and the appointment of their leader, we immediately demonstrated our interest in maintaining regular contact," Lavrov said after the meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Protesters threw stones and bottles at the Egyptian prime minister's motorcade on Saturday as he tried to enter Cairo's Tahrir Square after overnight clashes nearby and at the presidential palace, media reported.

Dream Live, a private television station, reported that Prime Minister Hisham Qandil left the scene after the attack. His office said in a statement, without elaborating, that he had been "confronted by youths and troublemakers."

A senior Iranian security official visiting Damascus on Saturday pledged Tehran's full support for the Syrian regime, its close ally, Syrian state television said.

"We will give all our support so that Syria remains firm and able to face all the arrogant (Western) conspiracies," said Saeed Jalili, who heads the Supreme National Security Council.