Egypt's military prosecution on Saturday ordered 179 people be detained over deadly clashes between troops and anti-military protesters in Cairo, a military source told Agence France Presse.

Following the arrest of 320 people after Friday's clashes outside the defense ministry in Cairo, the prosecution "has decided to hold 179 people, including 13 women, for 15 days pending investigation," the source said.

Saudi King Abdullah ordered on Friday the return of the kingdom's ambassador to Egypt and the reopening of the mission after it was shut last week in the wake of angry protests, state news agency SPA said.

The king "instructed the kingdom's ambassador to Cairo to resume his post on Sunday, and ordered the reopening of the embassy and the consulates in Alexandria and Suez," SPA reported, quoting an unnamed official.

Saudi Arabia has assured a high ranking Egyptian delegation visiting the kingdom following Riyadh's closure of its Cairo embassy over protests that relations remain "solid", the SPA state news agency said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also told the delegation that Riyadh does not rule out that "foreign elements" could have plotted to cause the tension between the two Arab heavyweights, SPA reported late on Thursday.

Egyptian activists have called for anti-military demonstrations across the country on Friday, days after bloody clashes near the defense ministry left at least nine people dead.

Several pro-democracy movements, including April 6, as well as the powerful Muslim Brotherhood said they would be joining the protests in Cairo and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, amid a tense political run-up to the country's first post-uprising presidential election.

Two Egyptian presidential candidates decided on Wednesday to temporarily suspend their campaigns over clashes in central Cairo that left twelve people dead.

The Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi told reporters he decided to suspend his campaign for 48 hours "in solidarity with the protesters."

Thugs attacked an anti-military protest near the Defense Ministry in Cairo on Wednesday and 20 people were killed, officials said, in the politically tense run-up to the first post-uprising presidential election.

The dawn assault sparked fierce clashes between the unidentified attackers and the protesters, who have been there for days calling for an end to military rule, with both sides hurling petrol bombs and rocks, the official said.

More than 90 people were wounded in overnight clashes between Salafist protesters and residents of a Cairo neighborhood, the Egyptian health ministry said on Sunday.

Dozens of supporters of Hazem Abu Ismail on Saturday night marched towards the Abbassiya district to protest the electoral commission's decision to bar the popular hardline Islamist from contesting next month's presidential poll.

Hamas head Khaled Meshaal is to travel to Cairo next week for talks with Egyptian officials on Palestinian reconciliation, a senior official of the Islamist movement said Thursday.

Hamas political bureau chief Meshaal "will visit Cairo early next week to discuss reconciliation and Egyptian-Palestinian relations," Ismail Radwan told Agence France Presse in Gaza City, without giving a specific date.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stated on Wednesday that he was not informed that the Bkirki meeting that was supposed to be in April has been postponed.

He said: “We are still awaiting the outcome of the efforts of the follow-up committee that is studying the parliamentary electoral law.”

The body of Coptic Pope Shenuda III left Cairo's Saint Mark's cathedral on Tuesday after a funeral service attended by thousands, and was headed to its final resting place in a 4th century monastery in the Egyptian desert.

Pallbearers struggled to get the white coffin out of the vast cathedral, pushing through a sea of mourners who threw rose petals and waved white lilies, as others pressed forward to try to touch the coffin, causing it to tilt several times.