Flights from the Libyan capital's sole functioning airport were suspended Thursday after deadly overnight rocket fire, a spokesman for the country's unity government said.

Syrian regime forces captured a string of insurgent-held villages in northwest Syria on Thursday, inching closer to a key jihadist-run town in the Idlib region, a war monitor said.

Ankara will not tolerate any delay from the US over setting up a safe zone in northern Syria, Turkey's foreign minister said on Thursday.

Jihadists on Wednesday downed a regime plane flying over northwest Syria as it took part in a deadly military campaign against the region and took the pilot prisoner, a monitor said.

A Syrian war monitor and state-controlled media say that government forces have captured two northwestern villages, inching closer to a major rebel-held town.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitoring group, says Syrian troops captured the villages of Tel Aas and Kfar Eean early on Wednesday. The villages are just west of the rebel stronghold of Khan Sheikhoun.

Iran's supreme leader has held talks with a senior Yemeni rebel official just days after the long-running intervention against the rebels by its regional foes Saudi Arabia and the UAE suffered a major setback.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi put on a display of unity over Yemen, but the capture of Aden by UAE-backed separatists exposes simmering divisions that analysts say weaken their joint campaign against Iran-linked rebels.

Israel has deported a Filipina migrant worker and her Israeli-born teenage son after 11th hour legal appeals failed, a children's rights group and authorities said Tuesday.

Egypt wrapped up a two-day summit with Sudan's main protest leaders Tuesday, its foreign ministry said, days before they are due to sign an agreement paving the way for civilian rule in the country.

Members of the al-Ali family were walking home from shopping when several shells slammed into the busy street on the western edges of the Syrian city of Aleppo. The blast tore through them, killing 2-year-old Salam and one of her cousins, and incinerated a car nearby with a woman and her infant daughter inside.

It was one of multiple attacks by rebels firing from Aleppo's outskirts that killed more than a dozen civilians last month.