A group of nuns from the historic Christian-majority town of Maalula in Syria appeared in a new video broadcast by the Qatar-based satellite news channel Al-Jazeera on Sunday.

The women are reportedly 12 nuns from a Greek Orthodox convent of Mar Takla in Maalula who were taken by gunmen in early December. Al-Jazeera said the video it broadcast on Sunday was recorded on February 5.

A Yemeni court specializing in terrorism cases began the trial on Sunday of six al-Qaida suspects accused of murdering a Saudi diplomat and kidnapping a Swiss woman.

The defendants, two of them being tried in absentia, are charged with forming part -- between 2011 and 2013 -- of "an armed group linked to al-Qaida," the official Saba news agency reported.

A Kuwaiti MP Sunday proposed a draft law that would impose jail terms of up to 30 years on Kuwaiti jihadists fighting abroad, nearly a week after Saudi Arabia introduced similar penalties.

The bill, submitted by pro-government legislator Nabeel al-Fadhl, stipulates jail terms of between five and 20 years for Kuwaitis who travel abroad to fight, as well as those who encourage or support such activities in any way.

Syria's government delegation arrived in Geneva on Sunday for a fresh round of peace talks with opposition representatives, state television said.

"The Syrian Arab Republic's delegation, headed by (Foreign) Minister Walid Muallem, has arrived in Geneva to take part in a second round" of the talks starting on Monday, it said.

Egypt's interior ministry said Sunday it had broken up a "military wing" of the Muslim Brotherhood, allegedly formed to attack policemen, in the most detailed accusation yet implicating the group in militant attacks.

The Brotherhood, the group of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, says it rejected violence decades ago and believes in peaceful protest against the new, military-installed government.

Israel on Sunday denounced an Iranian announcement that it was sending naval ships towards the United States as further evidence that loosening sanctions on Tehran was counterproductive.

The move to send warships to the Atlantic was announced by the commander of Iran's northern naval fleet on Saturday, who described it as a "message."

A total of 420 people were evacuated Sunday from army-besieged districts of the Syrian city of Homs, the province's governor said, as television footage showed exhausted men, women and children.

"Four hundred and twenty besieged people came out today from the Old City districts of Homs, and the operation is still under way," Barazi said.

Shiite rebels and Yemeni tribesmen agreed a ceasefire on Sunday after deadly clashes between the two sides in the Arhab district near the capital Sanaa, state news agency Saba said.

Shiite rebels from the Ansarullah group, also known as Huthis, have been advancing from their mountain strongholds in the far north to other Zaidi Shiite-majority areas nearer Sanaa in a bid to expand their hoped-for autonomous zone in a future Yemen.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman rounded on right-wing coalition partners Sunday, saying that snipes at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's peace efforts risked estranging "a true friend."

"The man has a record of 29 years in the Senate. You can see all of his votes, all of his speeches," Lieberman told Israeli army radio.

A bomb planted in the car of a Yemeni intelligence colonel exploded Sunday near the oil ministry, killing the officer and wounding three people, a security official said.

The blast is the latest in a series of attacks targeting military personnel in a country that is grappling with several armed revolts and negotiating a difficult political transition.