The wife of acclaimed Syrian artist Youssef Abdelke, whose works are displayed in museums around the world, appealed for his release on Saturday, after his arrest by regime security forces.

He had been arrested at a security checkpoint in the western port city of Tartus two days previously, along with two fellow members of the Communist Labor Party.

Jordan's king on Saturday became the first head of state to visit Egypt since the army ousted its Islamist president, whose supporters pressed protests after a night of deadly clashes.

King Abdullah II, who faces challenges at home from Islamists, was among the first leaders to congratulate Egyptians after the military overthrew president Mohammed Morsi in a popularly backed coup on July 3.

Algerian soldiers shot dead four Islamists during an overnight raid in the town of Sour El-Ghozlane southeast of the capital Algiers, security sources said on Saturday.

The army also seized weapons during the raid, the national news agency APS said quoting security sources.

Syrian Kurdish fighters in the northeast expelled jihadists from a checkpoint on Saturday and seized their weapons and ammunition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The advance comes just days after Kurdish fighters loyal to the Democratic Union Party (PYD) expelled jihadists allied to Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) from the strategic Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain.

Cairo will "reexamine" diplomatic ties with Syria that were severed last month under ousted President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, said on Saturday.

"Everything will be reexamined," Fahmy said of the decision to sever ties with Syria.

Al-Qaida suspects shot dead a member of a Yemeni pro-army militia that had backed a military offensive against the network last year, a police official said on Saturday.

"Suspected Al-Qaida gunmen riding in a vehicle shot dead Mohammed Abbad, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees in the town of Mudia" in the southern Abyan province, the official said.

Israel announced on Saturday it will release some Palestinian prisoners as a "gesture", after the two sides agreed to lay the groundwork to resume peace negotiations frozen for three years.

Some of those to be released had been held in prisons for decades, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said.

Three women died in clashes between loyalists and opponents of Egypt's ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, medics said Saturday, despite warnings by the military that it would crackdown on violent protests.

"Three people were killed and seven others wounded by birdshot and stabbing attacks during clashes between Morsi supporters and his opponents," Adel Said, a hospital official in the Nile Delta city of Mansura, told AFP.

Israeli negotiator and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni hailed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's announcement Friday on an agreement for the basis to resume peace talks with the Palestinians.

"These were long months of scepticism and cynicism," she said in a statement. "But now, four years of diplomatic stagnation are about to end."

Three Britons convicted on drugs charges in Dubai, who claimed they were tortured in prison, have been freed in an amnesty, diplomatic sources in London said Friday.

Grant Cameron, 25, Karl Williams, 26, and Suneet Jeerth, 25, all from east London, were convicted in April of possessing for consumption more than one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of synthetic cannabis known as Spice.