Thousands of people opposed to President Bashar Assad protested in Syrian towns on Friday to urge the international community to act to halt the regime's bloody repression of their uprising.

Following a nationwide theme, protesters demanded justice for the victims of a regime crackdown in Daraya, a Damascus town where more than 500 people were reportedly killed in late August in the worst massacre of the uprising.

Several hundred Salafist Muslims demonstrated in the capital on Friday to demand a stronger reference to Islamic law or sharia in Egypt's new constitution, a contentious issue of rising political tension.

The size of the protest in Tahrir Square -- up to 500 people -- was limited because the main Salafist groups decided to postpone their demonstration on the issue to a later date, Agence France Presse reported.

Russia on Friday blasted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call for an overhaul of the Syrian opposition and accused Washington of trying to solve the conflict on its own terms.

The Russian foreign ministry said Clinton's comments on the Syrian National Council (SNC) no longer representing the entire anti-regime movement clashed with the agreements world powers reached on the conflict in Geneva in June.

The widow and children of Salafist Mahmoud Abdelal, who blew himself up in Syria last month, were all ears as his proud but grieving mother described his commitment to jihad.

His story is particularly timely, given that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the Syrian opposition on Wednesday to resist efforts by Islamist "extremists" to hijack the revolution to oust President Bashar Assad.

Syrian rebels have killed a Kurdish woman militia leader in the northern city of Aleppo, highlighting growing tensions between anti-regime fighters and the Kurds, a monitoring group said Friday.

"Shaha Ali Abdu, also known as Nujeen Dirik, was killed early on Friday. She headed a Kurdish popular defense unit that is part of the Democratic Union Party (PYD)," Syria's branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The main opposition Syrian National Council on Friday urged rebels be held accountable after a video purported to show opposition fighters executing Syrian soldiers.

"We urge the (rebel) Free Syrian Army and the revolutionary movement on the ground to hold to account anyone who violates human rights," SNC human rights committee head Radif Mustafa told Agence France Presse by telephone.

Israel may be openly hoping that Republican challenger Mitt Romney will end up stealing the presidency from Barack Obama, but for the Palestinians it makes little difference who takes over the White House.

With the U.S. presidential race drawing to a close, Israelis have come out strongly in favor of the Republican nominee who they believe is likely to be a better friend to the Jewish state than President Obama.

Munzir is still a teenager but he's already a veteran of the Syrian war. He fought in his hometown, driving out regime soldiers, and is now trying to do the same in Aleppo.

Except that winning Aazaz only took a couple of weeks.

Amnesty International called on Iran on Friday to probe allegations of abuses against female prisoners by their guards, saying nine women inmates were on hunger strike in response to the mistreatment.

The women, held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, include activists and journalists who say they were subjected to humiliating and degrading body searches by female guards who also confiscated their personal belongings, Amnesty said.

Libyan ex-rebel fighters protesting against a new government line-up loosened a day-old siege of the national assembly building on Friday, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Traffic was flowing freely again on the road leading to the assembly and the adjacent Rixos hotel, with police cars deployed at the entrances and at nearby junctions.