Israel plans to charge officials from Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's party in a major corruption probe, with one also accused of drug offences, the attorney general said.

The charges are linked to what has been called "one of the largest public corruption investigations in Israel," involving alleged crimes committed between 2009 and 2014.

It had become something they just had to do: whenever the main shopping street in Baghdad's Karrada district was bombed, Hussein al-Fatlawi and his brother would rush to help.

Bombings claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group hit shopping areas in Shiite districts of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, killing at least 17 people, security and medial officials said.

Well-known Moroccan cartoonist Khalid Geddar has asked for police protection after being threatened for reposting a drawing that led to the murder of a Jordanian writer, he said on Monday.

Yemeni authorities on Monday deported at least 220 African illegal immigrants, mainly Ethiopians, from the southern port city of Aden, security officials said.

Israel's attorney general has said he would approve a criminal probe of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if "reasonable" grounds were found, countering charges that the two men are too close.

Syrian and Russian air strikes on Aleppo have prompted accusations of war crimes over claims they involve sophisticated weaponry that can have a devastating effect in residential areas.

The head of Morocco's main secular party has vowed to combat "creeping conservatism" as it takes on the country's ruling Islamists in parliamentary elections next month.

Saudi Arabia on Monday executed an Ethiopian woman convicted of killing a Saudi child, the interior ministry said.

Protesters called on Monday for Jordan's government to resign over its failure to prevent the murder of the writer Nahed Hattar outside an Amman court.