Jordanian demonstrators on Friday criticized premier-designate Fayez Tarawneh, a day after he replaced Awn Khasawneh, accused by King Abdullah II of delaying much-needed reform.

"The people want to change policies, not only governments," read a banner among the more than 1,000 protesters, including opposition Islamists, other political parties and youths, who marched in central Amman.

Powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr opposes toppling the Iraqi government, but discussed not renewing the premier's mandate during a visit to Kurdistan, Sadr Movement officials said on Friday.

Sadr arrived in the autonomous Kurdistan region on Thursday, presenting himself as a mediator in a crisis between Kurdistan president Massud Barzani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The Syrian authorities are failing to respect a ceasefire pledge to withdraw troops from urban centers in accordance with an agreed peace plan, the European Union said Friday.

"We are very worried about the continued violence despite the ceasefire adopted by the Syrian regime," said a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Yemeni local officials said Friday that attackers have blown up a gas pipeline in the south, stopping the country's export of gas.

The officials said the attack is the second in less than a month in the southern province of Shabwa. It was not clear who was responsible.

Syria's exiled Muslim Brotherhood on Friday urged U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to acknowledge that Damascus had failed to honor a peace plan and to suspend its membership of the world body.

"We ask Ban Ki-moon to announce that Assad's government has failed to honor the peace plan and to declare the plan finished ... at a time when dozens of innocent people are dying," the group said in a statement issued in Britain.

A suicide bomb attack in the central Damascus district of Maidan killed at least seven people and wounded another 20 on Friday, Syrian state television reported, blaming "terrorists.”

The explosion took place near Zein al-Abidin mosque and a school, the report said, blaming "terrorists," the term the authorities use for rebels involved in an uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Bahrain's foreign ministry has insisted it respects the right to hold peaceful protests in the Gulf state and that its security forces only intervene when demonstrations turn violent.

"The kingdom of Bahrain authorizes the peaceful expression of opinion within the constitution and the law," it said in a statement late Thursday in response to U.S. State Department concerns.

Twin explosions ripped through a crowded cafe northeast of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 21, Iraqi officials said Friday.

The attack late Thursday in the village of Garma, near the city of Baqouba in Diyala province, came a week after a series of blasts killed dozens in the capital and across the country.

A blast ripped through a courthouse in the eastern city of Benghazi on Friday causing serious damage to the building but no casualties, Libyan security sources said.

The explosion punched a hole three meters (10 feet) in diameter through the walls of the courthouse on Meidan al-Shajara, a public square flanked by several government offices and the National Oil Corporation, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Thursday that French calls to use force in Syria under a United Nations mandate were counterproductive.

Bogdanov's comments came a day after French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Syria's United Nations-backed peace plan was "seriously compromised" and held out the threat of seeking military action to end a brutal 13-month crackdown on dissent.