Two Saudi sisters whose bodies were found taped together on the banks of a New York river committed suicide, the city's medical examiner said on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold Syria talks in Moscow on Wednesday, with Turkey saying they will focus on Ankara's so-called "security zone" in northern Syria.

The United States confirmed Tuesday that its envoy is meeting in Qatar with the Taliban, seeking to negotiate an end to the Afghanistan war despite a new major attack claimed by the insurgents.

Nearly 5,000 people, including almost 500 Islamic State fighters, have since Monday left the jihadist group's last bastion in eastern Syria, where IS continues to lose ground, a Britain-based monitor said.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir left Tuesday for a two-day visit to Qatar, state media reported, in what is his first trip abroad since nationwide protests against his rule erupted last month.

The Palestinian government will refuse all U.S. government aid for fear of lawsuits, officials said Tuesday, throwing the future of security coordination and projects already under way into doubt.

A car bomb exploded Tuesday in the Syrian regime's coastal stronghold of Latakia, killing one person and wounding four others, state news agency SANA reported.

A Hamas militant was killed by Israeli tank fire along the Gaza border Tuesday, the health ministry in the strip said, in what the Israeli army described as a response to gunfire which wounded a soldier.

The death toll from Israel's latest bombardment of military targets in Syria rose from 11 to 21, a war monitor said Tuesday, adding that most of those killed were Iranian.

A Palestinian attacked Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank late Monday before being shot and "neutralised," the army said, with Palestinian officials reporting the man had died.