Turkey's Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said Wednesday that talks with the US aimed at averting the need for a Turkish military intervention into northern Syria had been "positive", according to state news agency Anadolu.

Syrian state-run media say government forces have captured a northwestern village and are getting closer to the town of Kfar Zeita, which has been held by insurgents since 2012.

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said on Wednesday that troops captured Arbaeen the night before, following intense clashes with al-Qaida-linked militants.

After 18 months of threats, Turkey's president warned Tuesday that his troops could attack Kurdish-held areas of northeast Syria "very soon".

The U.N.'s human rights office on Tuesday accused southern Yemeni security forces of perpetrating "retaliatory attacks" against citizens from the country's north.

Pro-government forces and opposition fighters exchanged fire in northwest Syria on Tuesday, killing seven civilians, a war monitor said, after Damascus scrapped a ceasefire.

Turkey's combative president is threatening to launch a military operation in northeastern Syria that is designed to push back U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish forces — an invasion that carries major risks for a highly combustible region in war-devastated Syria.

An operation would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in the past four years — all seeking to limit the growing influence of Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Turkey views as terrorist along its border. Turkish and American military officials were meeting Monday and Tuesday in Ankara for last-ditch negotiations amid warnings from Turkish officials about a military buildup.

Israeli police on Tuesday recommended charging Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman over accusations he sought to prevent the extradition of a woman facing trial in Australia for pedophilia.

Forces loyal to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar said they launched air strikes early Tuesday against an airbase in third city Misrata held by government loyalists.

Turkey and the U.S. were on a collision course Tuesday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to "eliminate" a Kurdish militia in northern Syria -- a move deemed "unacceptable" by the Pentagon.

Erdogan has repeatedly warned that it is preparing an offensive into Syria against the Kurdish YPG militia, which the US has supported as the main fighting force against the Islamic State group. 

The Islamic State extremist group has been left with as much as $300 million following the loss of its so-called "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria, "with none of the financial demands of controlling territory and population," Secretary-General António Guterres said in a report released Monday.

The report to the Security Council on the threat posed by IS warns that the lull in attacks directed by the militant group "may be temporary."