Saudi Arabia has assured a high ranking Egyptian delegation visiting the kingdom following Riyadh's closure of its Cairo embassy over protests that relations remain "solid", the SPA state news agency said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also told the delegation that Riyadh does not rule out that "foreign elements" could have plotted to cause the tension between the two Arab heavyweights, SPA reported late on Thursday.

Egypt's military rulers vowed Thursday that this month's presidential election will be fair and moved to assure the public it would hand over power, a day after a deadly attack on an anti-military protest.

"We are committed to fair elections 100 percent. We don't have any candidates. All the candidates are respectable Egyptians," said Major General Mohammed al-Assar of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces

Egypt's military chief of staff said on Wednesday the army may transfer power to an elected president on May 24 if the vote is decided in the first round, state television reported.

The announcement came after four presidential candidates suspended their campaigns as the death toll mounted in bloody in clashes between anti-military supporters of a banned Islamist candidate and unidentified men in plainclothes.

Two Egyptian presidential candidates decided on Wednesday to temporarily suspend their campaigns over clashes in central Cairo that left twelve people dead.

The Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi told reporters he decided to suspend his campaign for 48 hours "in solidarity with the protesters."

Thugs attacked an anti-military protest near the Defense Ministry in Cairo on Wednesday and 20 people were killed, officials said, in the politically tense run-up to the first post-uprising presidential election.

The dawn assault sparked fierce clashes between the unidentified attackers and the protesters, who have been there for days calling for an end to military rule, with both sides hurling petrol bombs and rocks, the official said.

Egyptian security services foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Cairo several months ago, the legal advisor of the kingdom's embassy said in local dailies on Tuesday.

Egypt "arrested three Iranians planning to assassinate the ambassador, Ahmed Qattan," Al-Hayat quoted Sami Jamal as saying.

Italian police said on Tuesday they had intercepted 79 immigrants from Egypt and arrested 15 presumed people smugglers near the southern Sicilian port of Trapani.

About 30 of the immigrants were travelling on a rubber dinghy and the others in a fishing vessel, a statement said.

Campaigning for Egypt's presidential election next month officially began on Monday, with Islamists and liberal secularists expected to dominate.

Official campaigning, during which candidates can display their posters in public and broadcast their messages on television, will last until May 21, 48 hours before polls open for the first round of voting, on May 23 and 24.

The head of Egypt's ruling military has told parliament speaker Saad al-Katatni he will reshuffle the government on Sunday ahead of next month's presidential election, the Muslim Brotherhood website said.

"Field Marshal (Hussein) Tantawi tells Katatni he will reshuffle the government in the coming hours," the site said.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said on Sunday that the case of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is to be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.

Meshaal told journalists in Cairo that he had agreed on the course of action in talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.