US-backed forces battling to oust the Islamic State group from its Syrian bastion Raqa have advanced in the city's south, seizing a new neighbourhood, a spokesman and monitor said Tuesday.

Thousands of Jews attended prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to observe the start of the Tisha B'av fasting day on Monday night, days after violence shook the city.

Five men suspected of belonging to al-Qaida were killed in Yemen Monday in a drone strike likely to have been carried out by the United States, a security official said.

Food access in Syria's battle-torn Raqa is now at "a critical turning point," aid organizations said Monday, with markets shuttered and residents depending fully on their dwindling stockpiles.

The Algerian army on Monday killed six armed Islamists during an ongoing security operation west of Algiers, the defense ministry said.

Thousands of people gathered in the rebel-held Yemeni capital Monday to witness the public execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a three-year-old girl.

A region besieged by the regime forces east of Syria's capital on Sunday received U.N. aid for the first time in five years, a U.N. source said.

Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is on a rare visit to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Sadr's office released a statement Sunday saying he'd been invited to the Sunni kingdom.

Turkish authorities have detained a group of soldiers who were filmed allegedly beating up and verbally abusing four young Syrians who attempted to cross the border illegally, the army said in a statement.

A Saudi policeman was killed and six others wounded Sunday in a rocket attack in the Shiite-majority eastern district of Qatif, the interior ministry said.