Fresh clashes between police and protesters, angry over a film apparently made in the United States that mocks Islam, erupted on Friday outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

The protesters, many in their teens and moving around in small clusters, pelted police with stones who responded by firing tear gas.

The international airport in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi reopened on Friday after a closure of several hours due to security concerns, an aviation source said.

"The civil aviation office has ordered the reopening of the airport after the security conditions were assured," the source said, asking not to be named.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied accusations he is interfering in the U.S. presidential vote by pushing President Barack Obama to take a tougher stand on Iran's nuclear program.

In newspaper interviews published on Friday ahead of the Jewish new year, Netanyahu dismissed accusations that he is trying to paint Obama as weak on Iran in order to boost support for Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday the Middle East was at risk of descending into "chaos" following a deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Libya and incidents in Egypt and Yemen.

"We are afraid that the region may descend into chaos, which is essentially what is happening already," he said in comments broadcast on state television from his summer residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, on Thursday condemned the release of an amateur movie mocking Islam and the deadly attacks against U.S. missions over the film.

The kingdom "condemned the violent reactions in several countries against U.S. interests," the official news agency SPA said, and "the production by an irresponsible group in the United States of a film insulting the Prophet Mohammed."

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said on Thursday the deadly conflict in Syria was getting worse as he arrived on his first official trip aimed at ending nearly 18 months of violence.

"We came to Syria to hold meetings with our Syrian brothers because there is a big crisis, and I think it is getting worse," the official SANA news agency quoted the U.N. and Arab League envoy as saying on arrival at Damascus airport.

Libya has made several arrests over an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the ambassador and three other U.S. nationals, the deputy interior minister told AFP on Thursday.

"The interior and justice ministries have begun their investigations and evidence gathering and some people have been arrested," Wanis al-Sharef said.

Several hundred Palestinians in the Gaza Strip protested on Thursday against an anti-Muslim film that has sparked deadly riots in Libya and Yemen.

The protest, called by the ruling Hamas government's ministry of religious endowments, comes after two days of demonstrations that have left four U.S. embassy staff including the ambassador dead in Libya and a protester shot dead in Yemen.

Libya has set up an independent judicial committee to probe an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which four Americans including the ambassador were killed, a spokesman said on Thursday.

"All measures are being taken. An independent judicial committee has been set up to carry out an inquiry," Abdelmonem al-Horr, spokesman for the Libyan interior ministry's security commission, told AFP.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi reiterated during a visit to the EU on Thursday that Syrian President Bashar Assad must step down as "a president that kills his own people is not acceptable."

At a news briefing, Morsi interjected to state "this is completely agreed upon" when European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters after talks between the two sides that "we are also adamant that Assad should go."