Kuwaiti riot police used tear gas and water cannons on Friday to disperse hundreds of stateless protesters who were demanding citizenship and other basic rights.

The police attacked some 400 people who gathered following noon prayers in Jahra, 50 kilometers northwest of Kuwait City, raising Kuwaiti flags and banners reading: "We demand Kuwaiti citizenship."

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians protested nine months into their uprising on Friday, demanding the Arab League hasten its response to a bloody crackdown on dissent, as activists said security forces shot dead 17 people across the country.

Nine people were killed in the central province of Homs, three in the central province of Hama, three in the southern province of Daraa and two near the capital Damascus, the Local Coordination Committees reported.

Bahraini police have arrested prominent human rights blogger Zainab al-Khawaja, according to a rights group and video posted online of her being roughed up, handcuffed and dragged off into custody.

Khawaja had been taking part in a sit-in protest on a highway leading to the capital Manama when police moved in to detain her on Thursday, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said in a statement.

At least two people were killed on Friday and more than 170 hurt in clashes between Egyptian protesters and security forces, a health ministry official said, as the worst violence in weeks overshadowed the count in the second phase of a landmark general election.

"Two people died of gunshot wounds and 138 were wounded," said the official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

The U.S. military signed over to Baghdad the last of its military bases in Iraq at a ceremony near the southern city of Nasiriyah on Friday, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

The Imam Ali Base, referred to by the U.S. military as Camp Adder, lies southwest of Nasiriyah, and was officially handed over to Hussein al-Assadi, the Iraqi official responsible for base transfers.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday the United States hopes it can work with Russia on the draft resolution it proposed to the U.N. Security Council on the Syria crisis.

Though Clinton said Washington had differences with Moscow on the draft, Clinton said it was the "first time" that Russia has recognized the violence in Syria needs to be taken up by the Security Council.

Russia on Thursday surprised the Western powers by proposing a U.N. Security Council resolution on the Syrian crisis, as France hailed the move as "an extraordinary event."

As a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia has tried to head off Security Council intervention in the Syria crisis. With China, it vetoed a council resolution proposed by European nations in October condemning Assad's crackdown on protests which the U.N. says has left 5,000 dead.

A leading Syrian human rights activist on Thursday urged the international community to cut diplomatic ties with Damascus and up pressure on Russia to stop blocking U.N. action against the regime there.

"So far 5,000 people have been killed in Syria, among them are 277 children, 159 women and a lot of people were killed under torture. All this is happening in cold blood and the international community is watching and doing nothing," Rami Abdul Rahman, founder of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday on the sidelines of a European Union conference in Warsaw.

Armed men fired on the cars of two Turks near the Syrian city of Idlib, slightly injuring one of them, Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

Mehmet Akinay and Nesim Zeytinci were driving to Saudi Arabia through Syria in cars with non-Turkish license plates when they came under fire from gunmen in civilian clothes 15 kilometers from Idlib, Anatolia said.

Canada on Thursday became the first Western nation to order an evacuation of its nationals from Syria, urging some 5,000 Canadians to leave the violence-wracked Middle East nation.

Foreign Minister John Baird urged Canadians in Syria to leave the country "by any available means and while options exist."