A Tel Aviv court on Sunday jailed a young Israeli woman for four-and-a-half years for spying and leaking classified military documents to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, officials said.

A transcript of Sunday's ruling obtained by Agence France Presse said Anat Kam was given 45 days to appeal the sentence, which comes on top of the time she had already spent under house arrest since December 2009.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula denied on Sunday the death of its media chief in a suspected U.S. drone strike earlier this month, a statement distributed to the public in Yemen's southern Shabwa province said.

Yemen's defense ministry announced on October 15 that Ibrahim al-Banna was among at least seven militants killed in a triple raid that also claimed the life of the teenage son of slain U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi.

The trial of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak which was due to resume on Sunday has been postponed following demands for the appointment of a new judge, state-run news agency MENA reported.

A new hearing has been set for December 28, MENA said.

Kuwait's opposition has requested a meeting with the country's ruler to press for the removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Sabah over alleged corruption, MPs said Sunday.

The decision came following a meeting by 19 opposition MPs in the 50-member parliament Saturday night to "study specific steps that would ensure changing the prime minister," MP Faisal al-Muslim said.

Syrian activists on Sunday urged the Arab League to freeze the country's membership in the 22-member organization over the deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

The Syrian Revolution 2011, one of the motors of the dissent, made the appeal after almost 100 people died Friday and Saturday in the bloodiest two days of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime.

Islamic Jihad on Sunday said it would observe an Egyptian-brokered truce in and around Gaza after a day of violence which killed nine Palestinian militants and an Israeli.

The ceasefire, which came into effect shortly after dawn on Sunday, appeared to be holding, with Israeli police and the military saying the rocket fire had tailed off shortly before 7:00 am (0500 GMT).

Iraq will not be fully able to defend its borders and airspace until at least 2020, a watchdog quoted Iraq's top general as saying in a report on Sunday, months before U.S. troops are to leave.

The Iraqi military's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, "estimated that it will take several more years before Iraq can provide for its external defiance without assistance from international partners," said the report from the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

Syrian President Bashar Assad has warned that any Western action against his country would cause an "earthquake" that would inflame the region, in an interview published in a British newspaper.

The Sunday Telegraph said Assad warned of "another Afghanistan" if foreign forces intervened in Syria as they did with the Libyan uprising that led to the killing of Moammar Gadhafi.

Twenty Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday and 53 wounded in clashes with presumed army deserters, activists said.

"Twenty soldiers perished on Saturday and 53 were wounded in clashes between the regular army and presumed deserters in the Baba Amro district of Homs," said a statement from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights received in Nicosia.

A Saudi court on Saturday jailed for 15 years a Saudi woman known as "al-Qaida lady" for being the first woman in the kingdom tried for involvement in violence by the jihadist network, state media said.

"A Saudi woman was sentenced to 15 years in jail starting on the date of her arrest, followed by 15 years of a ban on travelling after her release," SPA state news agency reported.