More than 11,000 migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean and taken to Italy in the past six days, coastguards said, with hundreds more expected Friday.

As the wave of refugees trying to get to Europe grows, the Italian navy said it managed to recapture an Italian fishing trawler that had been attacked by Libyan gunmen off the chaotic war-torn country.

Support for freedom of speech has dropped across a number of Middle Eastern and North African countries since 2013, according to a survey by the Qatari branch of a U.S. university.

In Saudi Arabia, Egypt and, most notably, Tunisia, the numbers of people backing the principle of free speech by social media users fell, said Northwestern University in Qatar's (NU-Q) "Media Use Survey 2015."

South Korea's foreign ministry said Tuesday that it has pulled its diplomats out of Tripoli following a deadly attack claimed by the Islamic State group on its embassy compound.

Amid growing concerns over security in Libya, South Korea has allowed its diplomats to rotate between Tripoli and Tunis every two weeks since July last year.

Tunisia's coastguard and navy Monday rescued almost 180 African migrants from two boats which broke down as they headed from Libya to Italy, the Red Crescent and an AFP correspondent said.

The Red Crescent said the migrants -- 94 on one boat and 84 on the other -- sent out a distress call from off the coast of southeast Tunisia as they headed for the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Four Tunisian soldiers were killed and six wounded Tuesday in an ambush in the Kasserine region where the military is battling jihadists, state television reported.

"Four soldiers have died as martyrs and six were wounded in an ambush against a military patrol," the Wataniya 1 channel reported, quoting the defense ministry.

The trial of 77 people in Tunisia charged with involvement in a jihadist attack that killed eight soldiers was adjourned Monday after the defense asked for more time to prepare.

Only six of those charged are in custody: 70 more, among them around 50 Algerians, will be tried in absentia. Another is not in detention.

Turkey on Friday summoned Tunisia's ambassador to explain remarks made by the Tunisian foreign minister accusing Ankara of facilitating the transit of jihadist fighters bound for neighboring Syria and Iraq, a Turkish official said.

"The foreign ministry sought an explanation for the remarks made by the Tunisian foreign minister," the official told AFP.

Tunisia announced Thursday plans to appoint a consular or diplomatic representative to war-hit Syria, more than three years after the two countries broke off diplomatic ties.

Foreign Minister Taieb Baccouche told AFP that Tunisia will have a "consular or diplomatic representative... in Syria within days to monitor the situation of Tunisians, both civilians and combatants".

The U.N. World Tourism Organization said Monday it was "confident" in Tunisia's ability to rebound as the Bardo National Museum reopened to the public after the massacre of 21 tourists.

"We have total confidence in Tunisia. We are confident that it will overcome the past and that it will move forward," UNWTO secretary general Taleb Rifai told reporters in Tunis.

Tunisia said it killed the leader of the jihadists accused of organizing the massacre at its national museum, as thousands took to the streets Sunday in a march against extremism.

Authorities said Lokmane Abou Sakhr -- an Algerian who was singled out as the organizer of the museum attack -- was killed along with at least eight others from the notorious Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade.