At least eight migrants and guards were killed, and scores more injured, in a fire on Sunday at a holding facility in Yemen's capital, the International Organization for Migration said. 

Pope Francis vowed Sunday to keep Iraq in his heart, as he concluded the largest mass and final public event of a historic trip meant to encourage the country's dwindling Christian community and deepen interfaith dialogue.

A Saudi-led military coalition mounted air strikes on Yemen's Huthi-controlled capital Sanaa on Sunday after it intercepted a string of drones launched by the Iran-backed rebels, state media reported.

The Iraq meeting of Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Shiite Islam's top clerics, was front-page news in Iran Sunday, with some media declaring it a chance for peace in the neighboring country.

Pope Francis prayed Sunday for "victims of war" in northern Iraq, where the Islamic State group ravaged one of the world's oldest Christian communities until the jihadists' defeat three years ago.

Missile strikes on makeshift oil refineries in northern Syria killed four people and injured more than 20 others, a war monitor said Saturday.

Fierce fighting between Yemeni pro-government forces and Iran-backed Huthi rebels has killed at least 90 combatants on both sides in the past 24 hours, government military sources said Saturday.

Syria's Kurds have handed back 12 children of alleged Islamic State members to their mothers from Iraq's Yazidi minority, a Kurdish official said Friday.

Pope Francis and Iraq's top Shiite cleric delivered a powerful message of peaceful coexistence Saturday, urging Muslims in the war-weary Arab nation to embrace Iraq's long-beleaguered Christian minority during an historic meeting in the holy city of Najaf.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said religious authorities have a role in protecting Iraq's Christians, and that they should live in peace and enjoy the same rights as other Iraqis. The Vatican said Francis thanked al-Sistani for having "raised his voice in defense of the weakest and most persecuted" during some of the most violent times in Iraq's recent history.

Israel's defense minister has said Israel is upgrading contingency plans to strike Iranian targets if Tehran shows signs of nuclear escalation, the latest sign of rising tensions between the two archenemies.

Benny Gantz told the American cable network Fox News that Israel is still working on its plans, but that "we have them in our hands of course."