Human Rights Watch called for the Syrian authorities on Friday to "respect" the right of its people to protest, amid online calls for large demonstrations.

"Syria’s government should immediately cease its intimidation and harassment of demonstrators expressing solidarity with pro-democracy campaigners in Egypt," the human rights group said in a statement.

Protesters demanding President Hosni Mubarak's ouster packed Cairo's central square in huge numbers Friday, waving Egyptian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering, appearing undaunted and determined after their camp withstood two days of street battles with regime supporters trying to dislodge them.

Thousands more flowed over bridges across the Nile into Tahrir Square, a sign that they were not intimidated after fending off everything thrown at the protesters by pro-Mubarak attackers — stones, firebombs, fighters on horses and camels and automatic gunfire. The protesters passed through a series of beefed-up checkpoints by the military and the protesters themselves guarding the square.

A wave of uprisings in Arab countries is a sign of an "Islamic awakening" which was envisaged when the 1979 Iranian revolution took place, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday.

"Today's events in North Africa, Egypt and Tunisia and some other countries have different meanings for us," Khamenei, the commander-in-chief and spiritual guide of Iran, said in a sermon at Tehran university during the Muslim weekly prayers.

Arab League chief Amr Moussa, a former Egyptian foreign minister, said Friday he might run for his country's presidency but stressed he thought President Hosni Mubarak would remain in power until September.

"I do not think he (Mubarak) will leave. I think he will stay until the end of August," he told France's Europe 1 radio.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Thursday in an interview with ABC television that he wants to leave office, but fears there will be chaos if he resigns.

The beleaguered Egyptian leader said he was "fed-up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot … for fear that the country would sink into chaos," ABC's Christiane Amanpour reported after their 20-minute interview in Cairo.

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman said on Thursday that neither President Hosni Mubarak nor his son Gamal, who was widely seen as a possible successor, will run in the upcoming presidential elections in September, state media reported.

Earlier Thursday, Suleiman called on security authorities to release detained protesters "not involved in criminal acts," state news agency MENA said.

New Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq on Thursday apologized for deadly unrest between supporters and foes of President Hosni Mubarak on Cairo's Tahrir Square, state television reported.

"I offer all my apologies for what happened yesterday and there will be an inquiry," Shafiq told state television as the fighting on Tahrir Square raged for a second day with at least seven people dead.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told U.S. diplomats in 2009 that neighboring Iran and Syria were providing weapons to insurgent groups within Iraq, a leaked document showed Thursday.

Maliki's comments to then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill came in the midst of a year-long diplomatic row with Damascus that prompted both Iraq and Syria to withdraw their respective ambassadors, while U.S. officials have long alleged that Iran backs militia groups operating inside Iraq.

Gunmen firing on protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square killed four people on Thursday as the thousands demanding President Hosni Mubarak go stood firm in their increasingly bloody 10-day revolt.

"All (four) were killed by gunshot, with one hit in the head," said Dr. Mohammed Ismail, at a makeshift clinic in Abdulmenem Riad Square, next to Tahrir (Liberation) Square, taking the death toll over the past 24 hours to seven.

Tens of thousands of protesters massed on Thursday at Sanaa university for a "day of rage" against Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule, while a similar number of loyalists flooded a central square in support of the embattled Yemeni president.

With Saleh supporters, some of them armed, taking over Al-Tahrir square from Wednesday night, protest organizers were forced to change the planned venue of their demonstration.