A suicide bomber killed three people and wounded 165 in northern Iraq on Monday, while four people were killed in shootings elsewhere in the country, security and medical officials said.

The bomber struck at a police station in the town of Dibis, northwest of the ethnically mixed oil city of Kirkuk, district official Abdullah al-Salehi told AFP.

Saudi Arabia beheaded on Monday in Riyadh one of its nationals convicted of stabbing to death a fellow Saudi, the interior ministry said.

Khaled bin Hamad stabbed to death Abdul Mohsen bin Othman after a dispute between them, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday entered the final stretch of talks to form a new coalition government which will be sworn in just days before a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Time is of the essence for the Israeli leader who is facing a final deadline of March 16 to announce the shape of his new government after receiving a two-week extension to the initial 28 days he was given.

Syrian jets Monday bombed Baba Amr in a bid to repulse a rebel attack on the strategic neighborhood of Homs city, a watchdog said, adding that street battles erupted intermittently during the night.

Rebels launched their assault on Baba Amr at dawn on Sunday, hoping to take back the neighborhood which they lost to President Bashar Assad's forces a year ago.

A top Syrian opposition official met Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday in a bid to reverse Moscow's refusal to back calls on President Bashar Assad to step down.

Haytham Manna of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change -- Syria's second-largest anti-Assad group -- said he thought the road to peace in Syria ran through Moscow.

Al-Qaida's Iraqi front group claimed an attack on a convoy in west Iraq that killed 48 Syrian soldiers and nine Iraqi guards, in a statement posted on jihadist forums on Monday.

The soldiers had entered Iraq for medical treatment and were being transported through the western province of Anbar on their way back to Syria when the attack took place on March 4, according to the Iraqi defence ministry.

U.S. President Barack Obama's three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories will begin on March 20, Israel said on Sunday, in the first official announcement of the much-anticipated visit.

A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau said Obama was due to arrive Wednesday, March 20, at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv and then head to Jerusalem for talks with President Shimon Peres and a dinner meeting with Netanyahu.

Discontent in Egypt's police ranks has boiled over into an unprecedented strike, with officers saying they will refuse orders until they are no longer used as political pawns, adding to the problems of President Mohamed Morsi.

Accused of excessive use of force by the opponents of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, police officers say they feel despised by the people when they are simply following orders -- and they will not take any more.

Syria's National Coalition has for the second time in weeks postponed talks on the formation of an interim government, a senior member of the opposition grouping said Sunday, citing "deep rifts" on the issue.

The meeting was initially scheduled for last month in Istanbul but was postponed until Tuesday this week. It has now been delayed again, with a possible new date between March 18 and 20, said Samir Nashar.

Egypt's interior minister pleaded on Sunday for an end to "rumors" of police abuse, saying his forces had never fired a single shot at protesters since the start of the 2011 uprising.

Mohammed Ibrahim, who is facing an unprecedented strike by thousands of police officers across the country calling for his resignation, told reporters the media was waging an attack against the ministry and spreading lies.