Egypt briefly reopened the Rafah crossing on Saturday for humanitarian reasons to allow in some 50 people who were stranded in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas interior ministry said.

Egypt had on Thursday announced it was closing "indefinitely" the only crossing -- the only route into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave that bypasses Israel -- for security reasons a day after deadly violence nationwide.

Gunmen killed 12 Iraqi policemen and soldiers on Saturday while a truck bomb hit a southern port, the latest in a surge in violence that authorities have failed to curb.

Security forces have in recent weeks carried out some of their biggest operations since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. forces, but analysts and diplomats have said authorities have not addressed the root causes of the violence.

The trial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on charges of complicity in the deaths of protesters was adjourned on Saturday until August 25, after a brief session.

Mubarak, 85, and his former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, are on trial with six members of the regime overthrown in a 2011 uprising.

Al-Qaida loyalists attacked a mainly Kurdish town in northeastern Syria sparking fighting in which 18 people were killed, two of them ambulance crew, a watchdog said on Saturday.

The assault on the strategic border town of Ras al-Ain, from which the jihadists were expelled by Kurdish militia last month, sparked an exodus of civilians into neighboring Turkey, an activist said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro recalled his ambassador to Cairo on Friday and called for Egypt's ousted president Mohammed Morsi to be reinstated.

He also urged the restoration of constitutional order in Egypt, where more than 600 people have been killed in protests since Wednesday.

Egyptian police cleared Islamist protesters from a Cairo mosque on Saturday after a standoff that included exchanges of fire, as the death toll from four days of violence surpassed 750.

Security forces dragged supporters of deposed president Mohammed Morsi from the Al-Fath mosque, passing through angry crowds who tried to beat the Islamists, calling them "terrorists".

Attacks in Baghdad and north of the capital killed seven people on Friday, the latest in spiraling violence authorities have failed to stem despite launching wide-ranging anti-militant operations.

Iraq's prime minister has pledged to press a campaign against insurgents and security forces have carried out some of their biggest operations since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. forces in recent weeks in a bid to combat the violence, which is at its highest level since the country was emerging from all-out sectarian war in 2008.

France and Britain called Friday for Europe to send a strong message on the escalating crisis in Egypt, urging the EU to review its relations with Cairo.

The French presidency said in a statement that after talks by telephone, President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister David Cameron agreed "on the seriousness of the violence of recent days and on the need for a strong European message."

The Iranian foreign minister on Friday urged the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to intervene in member state Egypt to contain a deadly crackdown on Islamists, state television reported.

Mohammad Javad Zarif said a police crackdown on two protests camps set up by supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi that killed nearly 600 people was a "massacre", it said.

Iran has reduced flights of arms to Syria but Iraq cannot stop them completely and should not be treated as a "whipping boy," its foreign minister said Friday.

The United States has criticized Iraq for allowing Iran to fly weapons to Syria in support of embattled President Bashar Assad in a two-year-old civil war that has claimed more than 100,000 lives.