Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has demanded France's "total respect," following a row over visas and critical comments from Paris about the North African country.

Tunisia's President Kais Saied on Monday appointed a new government by decree, 11 weeks after he fired the last one.

"The president of the Republic has issued a decree naming the head of government and its members," the presidency said in a statement, shortly before state television broadcast a swearing-in ceremony.

Iraq said on Monday it has detained a top leader of the Islamic State group and a longtime al-Qaida operative in a cross-border operation.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi tweeted the news, identifying the man as Sami Jassem, who oversees the Islamic State group's financial operations and served as the deputy leader of IS under the late Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Iraq saw a record low election turnout since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, the independent body that oversees the election said Monday. The preliminary results signal widespread dissatisfaction and distrust in this weekend's vote for a new parliament.

The election was held months ahead of schedule as a concession to a youth-led popular uprising against corruption and mismanagement. But the vote was marred by widespread apathy and a boycott by many of the same young activists who thronged the streets of Baghdad and Iraq's southern provinces in late 2019, calling for change and new elections.

More than 5,000 Tunisians rallied on Sunday against a presidential power grab in the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings a decade ago.

Five people have been killed in a car-bomb attack targeting the governor of Aden, the seat of Yemen's internationally recognized government, security sources said on Sunday.

Iraqis voted Sunday in a parliamentary election held a year early as a concession to an anti-government protest movement but seen as unlikely to deliver major change to the war-scarred country.

Germany's outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel said Israel's security will be a top priority for "every German government", during a farewell tour in the Jewish state Sunday near the end of her 16-year term in office. 

An Israeli missile strike on an airbase in central Syria has killed two Damascus-allied foreign fighters and wounded several Syrian service personnel, a Britain-based war monitor said on Saturday.

The uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has returned home from 36 years of exile to dodge arrest in France, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported.