Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for "concrete action" to prevent a crisis in Syria's last rebel stronghold in a phone call with his French and German counterparts, his office said Friday.

Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar vowed on Friday to fight Turkish forces if peace talks in Geneva failed, in comments to a Russian news agency.

Algeria's peaceful "smile revolution" unseated the long-time president of Africa's largest country along with his powerful entourage and struck hard at the corruption they bred. But a year later, the pro-democracy movement is still holding its weekly marches, hoping to make further dents in the establishment.

This North African nation, whose powerful army has shadowed its rulers — or ruled outright — in an opaque system of governance since independence from France in 1962, is on the cusp of a new era, with no certainty what the future will look like.

Yemeni rebel missiles targeting cities in Saudi Arabia have been intercepted, the region's Riyadh-led military coalition said, in the latest cross-border attack by insurgents.

The missiles were fired by the Iran-aligned Huthi militant group, the coalition said in a statement released Thursday by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited American troops in Saudi Arabia Thursday after talks with King Salman on the second day of a visit focused on countering Iran.

Mustafa and Ines were helping their parents load the van once again to flee advancing Syrian troops, when bombardment hit the area and sewed panic on the street.

Nineteen children were among at least 31 civilians killed in air strikes on rebel-held northern Yemen last week, the United Nations said on Thursday.

Israel has ended its ban on Palestinian agricultural exports after the Palestinian Authority lifted its curb on calf imports from Israeli livestock farmers, the defence ministry said Thursday, seemingly resolving a months-long trade dispute.

The UN refugee agency on Thursday appealed to Turkey to take in more refugees from Syria, as hundreds of thousands flee the regime's brutal assault on the last rebel enclave.

Libya's unity government has announced it is halting its participation in UN talks aimed at brokering a lasting ceasefire in the war-torn country where a fragile truce has been repeatedly violated.