The Islamic State group killed nine Iran-trained Syrian fighters in an attack on one of their positions in eastern Syria on Thursday, a war monitor said.

Democrats failed Wednesday to block the United States from selling top-of-the-line fighter-jets to the United Arab Emirates, with most senators dismissing fears that President Donald Trump was setting off a dangerous arms race.

Hundreds of people protested in several towns across Iraq's Sulaimaniyah province on Wednesday, local sources told AFP, as rights organisations slammed the Kurdish authorities' targeting of peaceful demonstrators.

There is only one known Iranian in Gaza -- an aging former bodyguard to longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who dreams only of returning home, but finds himself stuck in the enclave.

The overall death toll for Syria's civil war has crept up to 387,000 following the least deadly of 10 years of conflict, a monitor said Wednesday.

A leading rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the right-wing Likud party announced his resignation from parliament Wednesday as he launches a new party to challenge the premier.  

Residents of Egypt's restive North Sinai region ran for their lives when an Islamic State group affiliate occupied their villages. Now, they are returning to find their homes booby-trapped.

The Egyptian army said Tuesday it had killed 40 suspected jihadist militants since September in air and ground operations in the Sinai region, site of an Islamist insurgency.

Thousands of striking Tunisian medics and hospital staff staged an angry protest on Tuesday over the country's crumbling public health infrastructure, after the death of a young doctor in a lift accident.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday his country will continue to support Syria, urging Damascus to confront Israel in the occupied Golan Heights.

Rouhani's website said the remarks came during a meeting with visiting Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.