Russian President Vladimir Putin has received the Iranian leader's top adviser hours after conferring with the Israeli prime minister about Iran's presence in Syria.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Putin has met with Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but wouldn't offer any details of the talks. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Velayati handed Putin letters from Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

An Israeli court on Thursday ordered a suspect in a firebombing that killed a Palestinian family to be released from prison to house arrest after throwing out parts of his confession.

An Islamic State group affiliate seized a village in southern Syria overnight from rebels who had agreed to a regime takeover, a Britain-based monitor said Thursday.

Much of the southern province of Daraa had been quiet since Friday, when a ceasefire deal between rebels and the Russian-backed regime ended a nearly three-week government assault.

Egypt hiked the prices of cigarettes on Thursday, the latest measure amid reforms designed to overhaul the country's troubled economy still reeling from a costly 2011 uprising.

The announcement was made by the chairman of Egypt's top cigarette manufacturer in a televised interview late Wednesday. Mohamed Haroun, Eastern Tobacco Company chairman, said his company will impose an increase of 1.5-3 Egyptian pounds, or about 8-17 cents, per pack of smokes.

Syria's air defenses overnight blocked an Israeli missile attack on army positions in southwest Syria near the occupied Golan Heights, state news agency SANA said. 

Syrian state media has confirmed a deal between the regime and rebels for opposition fighters to hand over their heavy weapons in the southern city of Daraa.

On Friday, an agreement was announced for the wider province of the same name, the cradle of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Israel fired a Patriot missile on Wednesday to intercept what initial findings showed was an unarmed Syrian drone that may have been on an intelligence mission, the Israeli army said.

In his beloved yellow taxi, Abu Ayman zigzags through the streets of Syria's capital Damascus, delighted that the security checkpoints that choked the streets for years have been removed. 

With the capital declared under full government control earlier this year, authorities have dismantled at least 15 roadblocks along main thoroughfares, where they stopped and searched passing vehicles. 

The United States designated a Shiite militant group in Bahrain as a foreign terrorist organization Tuesday to ramp up pressure on Iran.

The al-Ashtar Brigades are "yet another in a long line of Iranian-sponsored terrorists who kill on behalf of a corrupt regime," Nathan Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, said in a statement detailing the designation.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday issued a sweeping royal pardon for its soldiers deployed in Yemen, lifting any "military and disciplinary" penalties for troops taking part in its support of pro-government forces in the devastating conflict.