A Bahraini appeals court on Tuesday upheld a five-year jail sentence in a case against high-profile activist Nabeel Rajab linked to social media, a rights group and family member said.

The United States said it would boycott Tuesday's session of the Conference on Disarmament to protest Syria last week ascending to the helm of the body.

Jordan's King Abdullah II called for a review of a controversial draft tax law Tuesday as anti-austerity protesters staged another night of demonstrations in Amman and trade unions vowed to hold a general strike later Wednesday.

Saudi air defences on Tuesday intercepted a ballistic missile that targeted the western city of Yanbu after being fired from rebel-held territory in neighbouring Yemen, a Saudi-led military coalition said.

Seven years after giving birth to Syria's revolt, the country's south looks set to fall back into regime hands likely through a rare consensus emerging among rival powers.

A controversial Arab Israeli former legislator who fled his homeland over a decade ago, Azmi Bishara is now among the key diplomatic players in the crisis that estranges Qatar from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf peers.

A Palestinian armed with an axe was shot dead trying to breach the Gaza-Israel border on Monday, the Israeli army said.

A roadside bomb killed a fighter Monday near a base in northern Syria used by American and French soldiers from the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, a monitor said.

"A bomb by the side of the road exploded as a military vehicle drove by on the road from Ain Issa to the Brigade 93 base" in the northern province of Raqa, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Official media say Jordan's embattled prime minister has submitted his resignation amid mounting anti-government protests over a planned tax increase and recent price hikes of fuel and other basic goods.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he plans to visit North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang's state media reported Sunday, potentially becoming the first head of state to meet Kim inside the isolated country.