Israeli air strikes in Syria overnight killed at least eight fighters operating in pro-Iran militias, a war monitoring group said Wednesday.

Twenty-nine people were killed Tuesday by explosives in three separate incidents in parts of north Syria along the border with Turkey, a war monitor said.

A car bomb on Tuesday killed five people, mostly local police, on the outskirts of the Turkish-controlled town of Al-Bab in northern Syria, a war monitor said.

Explosives were planted in the car of a police chief from another district, killing him, two policemen accompanying him, and two civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

A close friend of Jamal Khashoggi told a Turkish court on Tuesday that the slain Saudi journalist felt threatened by people close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Clashes between Kurdish fighters and Turkey-backed opposition gunmen in northern Syria left at least 11 fighters dead in some of the most intense fighting in weeks between the two sides, an opposition war monitor and a Kurdish spokesman said Tuesday.

Exchange of fire and shelling between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkey-backed opposition gunmen who identify as the Syrian National Army have not been uncommon since Turkish troops invaded parts of northern Syria in October of last year.

Saudi Aramco said Tuesday that a strike by Yemen's Huthi rebels on its plant in Jeddah tore a hole in an oil tank, triggering an explosion and fire that was however quickly extinguished.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said they struck a Saudi oil facility in the port city of Jeddah on Monday with a new cruise missile, just hours after the kingdom finished hosting its virtual Group of 20 leaders summit.

An unnamed official at the kingdom's Ministry of Energy acknowledged the attack in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency late Monday. It came after videos of a small explosion at a Saudi Arabian Oil Co. facility in Jeddah circulated on social media all day. A projectile struck a fuel tank at the Jeddah distribution station and ignited a fire, the official said.

European states involved in efforts to end the conflict in Libya on Monday threatened sanctions against any parties that harm the fragile peace process.

Britain, France, Germany and Italy in a joint statement urged "all Libyan and international parties to refrain from any parallel and uncoordinated initiative" that risked undermining the UN-led efforts. 

From his lavish Cairo apartment overlooking the Nile, Ahmed Kadhaf al-Dam reminisces fondly about the iron-fisted rule of Libya by his cousin Moamer Kadhafi, nearly a decade after his ouster.

Israeli media reports and a government source said Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had held landmark talks in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but Riyadh denied any such meeting took place.