Syrian security forces on Sunday pressed a crackdown on dissent, killing nine people in the central cities of Homs and Hama and the northwestern province of Idlib, rights activists said, adding two soldiers were killed in an ambush.

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network spurring protests on the ground, reported a higher toll, saying 17 civilians were shot dead, among them nine in Hama.

Twenty people, including 13 Iranian pilgrims, were wounded in bomb attacks in Iraq on Sunday, an interior ministry official said, while insurgents launched rocket and bomb attacks on U.S. forces.

A roadside bomb targeting a bus carrying pilgrims wounded 15 people, among them 13 Iranians, in the Kadhmiyah area of north Baghdad, the official said.

Five activists facing trial in the United Arab Emirates for allegedly insulting top officials began a hunger strike on Sunday to pressure authorities to release them, the wife of one of them said.

"They began a hunger strike to get their voices through to UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and not to challenge authorities," said Wedad al-Muhairi, the wife of one of the detainees, Nasser bin Gaith.

Iraq on Sunday slammed the Arab League's decision to suspend Syria as unacceptable while also calling on Damascus to open dialogue with the opposition.

"Suspending Syria's membership in the Arab League came in an unacceptable way," Iraq government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Iraqiya television.

Massive pro-regime crowds vented their anger on Sunday as international pressure mounted on President Bashar Assad after an Arab League decision to suspend Syria and over its bloody protest crackdown.

In central Damascus, tens of thousands of people turned out in support of Assad, waving Syrian flags and portraits of the embattled leader, said an AFP reporter at the scene.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned an attack by angry protesters on its embassy in Damascus, blaming the Syrian government for a security lapse, the Saudi state news agency reported.

"The Syrian forces did not carry out the necessary measures to stop" the demonstrators, a foreign ministry official was quoted as saying by SPA news agency.

A hapless Canadian tourist who was shot in a southern Egyptian family feud died on Saturday after an unsuccessful operation, the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website.

The man, identified as Jean Francois, was shot when his taxi refused to stop at a checkpoint manned by villagers from al-Samata, who were looking for members of a rival clan, the report said.

Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill on Saturday started a peacemaking bid to unrest-swept Syria for talks with President Bashar Assad and other leaders, officials said.

"I am deeply convinced that all the problems can be solved peacefully and through dialogue," Kirill told journalists at Damascus airport, the Russian news agencies RIA Novosti and Interfax reported.

A cell planning attacks in the Sunni-dominated Gulf kingdom of Bahrain troubled by a Shiite-led opposition movement, has been broken up, the interior ministry spokesman said on Saturday.

Four members of the cell were detained in Qatar and turned over to Manama, while a fifth Bahraini was arrested inside the country, spokesman General Tareq al-Hasan said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday praised the "leadership" of the Arab League after the grouping suspended Syria in a move that deepened the Damascus government's isolation.

The League said the suspension will remain in place until President Bashar Assad implements an Arab deal to end violence against protesters, and called for sanctions and transition talks with the opposition.