Shelling by the Syrian army killed eight people, five of them civilians, Wednesday in the northwestern region of Idlib controlled by jihadist-led rebels, a war monitor reported.

Police on Wednesday arrested two former German soldiers accused of trying to form a "terrorist" paramilitary group to fight in Yemen's civil war, prosecutors said.

Syrian refugees returning to their war-battered country have faced alleged torture, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday.

A bomb attack on an army bus in Damascus killed 14 people Wednesday in the bloodiest such attack to strike the Syrian capital in four years, the SANA state news agency reported.

Israel granted approval on Tuesday for 4,000 Palestinians to register as residents of the West Bank, the first such move in the Israeli-occupied territory in 12 years. 

The newly regularized residents had already been living in the West Bank, including 1,200 people considered "undocumented" because they had not been registered with the Palestinian Population Registry and another 2,800 who had previously been identified as residents of the blockaded Gaza Strip. 

Paris-based former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki has emerged as a vocal critic of incumbent Kais Saied's power grab, but analysts say he may lack the popularity to lead the opposition.

Saied on July 25 sacked the government, suspended the legislature and seized control of the judiciary, later moving to rule by decree in the North African nation.

Iraq said Monday it has detained the mastermind behind a deadly 2016 bombing in a Baghdad shopping center, which killed around 300 people and wounded 250.

The suicide car bombing in the central Karradah district was the deadliest attack by a single bomber in the Iraqi capital after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The trials of three Egyptian activists and a rights lawyer, who have been held in prison for over two years on a number of charges, were postponed Monday, their lawyer said.

Activists Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Mohamed Ibrahim and Yahia Hussein Abdel-Hadi and lawyer Mohammed el-Baker appeared before judges of the Emergency State Security Court in Cairo, according to lawyer Khalid Ali. They will be tried in two separate proceedings in the same courtroom.

Sweden's foreign minister visited Israel on Monday in an effort to mend ties after years in which the two countries have been at odds over the conflict with the Palestinians.

Sweden's Social Democratic-led government recognized Palestinian statehood in 2014, making it the first large European country to do so since the end of the Cold War. Its former foreign minister's comments in support of the Palestinians drew angry responses from Israeli officials.

For many Iraqis, the name Colin Powell conjures up one image: the man who as U.S. secretary of state went before the U.N. Security Council in 2003 to make the case for war against their country.

Word of his death Monday at age 84 dredged up feelings of anger in Iraq toward the former general and diplomat, one of several Bush administration officials whom they hold responsible for a disastrous U.S.-led invasion that led to decades of death, chaos and violence in Iraq.