Spotlight
A French-Syrian man has been detained by French police on suspicion of supplying components for the manufacture of chemical weapons in Syria through his shipping company, sources briefed on the case told AFP.

Saudi Arabia on Monday executed a Yemeni man accused of plotting a suicide attack in the kingdom and of links to the Islamic State jihadist group, the interior ministry said.

Iraq's supreme court on Monday rejected a motion filed by the Hashed al-Shaabi ex-paramilitary alliance contesting its defeat in the October 10 parliamentary election.
"The Federal Court has decided to reject the complaint... and to make the plaintiffs bear the costs," Judge Jassem Mohamed Aboud said, reading out the verdict.

Libyan lawmakers met Monday to discuss the myriad challenges that forced a postponement of the long-awaited presidential election this month. The postponement was a major blow to international efforts to end a decade of chaos in the oil-rich North African country.
The vote has faced many obstacles, including controversial presidential hopefuls, disputes over laws governing the elections, and occasional infighting among armed groups.

The bodies of 16 Iraqi Kurdish migrants who drowned last month as they attempted to cross the English Channel have been repatriated to northern Iraq.
The Nov. 24 disaster, in which 27 migrants died, has been described as the worst on record involving migrants trying to cross the perilous passage to Britain from France. The boat capsized off the coast of northern France, sparking a political crisis. Britain and France accused each other of not doing enough to deter people from crossing the English Channel.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday the country intends to double the amount of settlers living in the occupied Golan Heights with a multimillion-dollar plan meant to further consolidate Israel's hold on the territory it captured from Syria more than five decades ago.
Speaking at a special Cabinet session being held in the Golan Heights, Bennett said the recognition by the Trump administration of Israeli sovereignty over the swath of land, and the Biden administration's indication that it will not at this point walk that decision back, prompted the new investment in the region.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said Sunday it struck a Huthi rebel camp in the capital Sanaa, as it intensified an aerial bombing campaign against the Iran-backed insurgents.

Israeli forces clashed with Palestinians in the West Bank in an area that has seen a recent uptick in friction, the Israeli military and Palestinian medics said.
The clashes late Saturday were part of days of tension in the area surrounding a West Bank settlement outpost and a spike in violence elsewhere in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

A Yemeni rebel attack on Saudi Arabia's southern border town of Jizan killed two people and wounded seven more late Friday, Saudi state-run media reported.
Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a projectile that killed a Saudi citizen and Yemeni resident in the southwestern Saudi province of Jizan, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. Six of the wounded are Saudis and one is a Bangladeshi national, Saudi media said.

Three Iranian diplomats have received visas from rival Saudi Arabia allowing them to take up posts at the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah, officials said Friday.
